Carlos Castaneda The Words Of Don Juan Matus

THE WORDS OF DON JUAN (JUAN MATUS),
HIS TEACHERS, AND MEMBERS OF HIS WARRIOR'S PARTY,
ON THE WARRIOR'S WAY

Part 1 : A Warrior's Personal Outlook

"For me there is only the traveling on the paths that have a heart, on any path that
may have a heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge for me is to
traverse its full length. And there I travel - looking, looking, breathlessly."
(1,11,149)

"Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind
that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not
stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a
disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and
there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your
heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it
must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely
and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. This question
is one that only a very old man asks. My benefactor told me about it once when
I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do
understand it. I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart? All paths
are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or
into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths,
but I am not anywhere. My benefactor's question has meaning now. Does this
path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both
paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a
joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make
you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you." (1,5,82)

"And, the next thing, the path without a heart will turn against men and destroy
them. It does not take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing." (1,9,128)

"One must always choose the path with heart in order to be at one's best,
perhaps so one can always laugh."(2,5,105)

"I said that a warrior selects the items that make his world. He selects deliberately,
for every item he chooses is a shield that protects him from the onslaughts of the
forces he is striving to use. For that purpose you must have a selected number of
things that give you great peace and pleasure, things you can deliberately use to
take your thoughts from your fright... The things a warrior selects to make his
shields are the items of a path with heart."(2,14,260-262)

"The recommendation for warriors is not to have any material things on which to
focus their power, but to focus it on the spirit, on the true flight into the
unknown ..." (6,1,27)

"People hardly ever realize that we can cut anything from our lives, any time, just
like that. [Snaps his fingers] Smoking and drinking are nothing. Nothing at all if
we want to drop them." (3,1,24)

"Denying yourself is an indulgence and I don't recommend anything of the kind.

The indulgence of denying is by far the worst; it forces us to believe we are doing
great things, when in effect we are only fixed within ourselves."(2,10,179)

"We choose only once. We choose either to be warriors or to be ordinary men. A
second choice does not exist. Not on this earth. (5,5,271)

"Everything we do, everything we are, rests on our personal power. If we have
enough of it, one word uttered to us might be sufficient to change the course of
our lives. But if we don't have enough personal power, the most magnificent
piece of wisdom can be revealed to us and that revelation won't make a damn bit
of difference." (4,1,16)

"Trust your personal power. That's all one has in this whole mysterious world."
(3,14,202)

"To be a warrior doesn't mean to practice witchcraft, or to work to affect people, or
to be possessed by demons. To be a warrior means to reach a level of awareness
that makes inconceivable things available. The term 'sorcery' is inadequate to
express what warriors do, and so is the term 'shamanism.' The actions of
warriors are exclusively in the realm of the abstract, the impersonal. Warriors
struggle to reach a goal that has nothing to do with the quests of an average man.
Warriors' aspirations are to reach infinity, and to be conscious of it." (12,4,69)

"What any apprentice needs to buffer him is temperance and strength. That's why
a teacher introduces the warrior's way, or living like a warrior. This is the glue
that joins together everything in a sorcerer's world. Bit by bit a teacher must
forge and develop it. Without the sturdiness and levelheadedness of the
warrior's way, there is no possibility of withstanding the path of knowledge.
(4,12,235)

"Only as a warrior can one survive the path of knowledge, because the art of the
warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man."
(3,20,315)

"A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide-awake, with fear, with
respect, and with absolute assurance."(l,2,35)

"My benefactor said that when a man embarks on the paths of knowledge he
becomes aware, in a gradual manner, that ordinary life has been forever left
behind; that knowledge is indeed a frightening affair; that the means of the
ordinary world are no longer a buffer for him; and that he must adopt a new
way of life if he is going to survive. The first thing he ought to do, at that point,
is to want to become a warrior, a very important step and decision. The
frightening nature of knowledge leaves one no alternative but to become a
warrior. By the time knowledge becomes a frightening affair the man also
realizes that death is the irreplaceable partner that sits next to him on the
mat. A man who follows the paths of knowledge is confronted with imminent
annihilation every turn of the way, and unavoidably he becomes keenly aware
of his death. Without the awareness of death he would be only an ordinary man
involved in ordinary acts. He would lack the necessary potency, the necessary
concentration that transforms one's ordinary time on earth into magical power.

Thus to be a warrior a man has to be, first of all, and rightfully so, keenly aware
of his own death. But to be concerned with death would force any one of us to

focus on the self and that would be debilitating. So the next thing one needs to
be a warrior is detachment. The idea of imminent death, instead of becoming
an obsession, becomes an indifference. Detach yourself from everything."
(2,10,182-183)

Detachment does not automatically mean wisdom, but it is, nonetheless, an
advantage because it allows a warrior to pause momentarily to reassess situations,
to reconsider positions. In order to use that moment consistently and correctly,
however, a warrior has to struggle unyieldingly for a lifetime. (6,6,117)

"A detached man, who knows he has no possibility of fencing off his death,
has only one thing to back himself with: the power of his decisions. His decisions
are final, simply because death does not allow him time to cling to anything."
(2,10,184)

"Death is always waiting, and when the warrior's power wanes death simply taps
him. Thus, to venture into the unknown without any power is stupid. One will
only find death." (3,12,167)

"Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, at an arms length. Death
is the only wise adviser that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that
everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death
and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing
really matters outside its touch." (3,4,55)

"We are beings on our way to dying. We are not immortal, but we behave as if we
were. This is the flaw that brings us down as individuals and will bring us down
as a species someday. Warriors, however, do have the upper hand; as beings on
their way to dying, they have someone whispering in their ear that everything is
ephemeral. The whisperer is death, the infallible advisor, the only one who won't
ever tell you a lie." (12,8, 125-127)

"A warrior thinks of his death when things become unclear."(2,3,63)

The worst that could happen to us is that we have to die, and since that is already
our unalterable fate, we are free; those who have lost everything no longer have
anything to fear. (7,15,240)

"When one has nothing to lose, one becomes courageous. We are timid only when
there is something we can still cling to." (5,2,106)

"I have told you time and time again, the most effective way to live is as a warrior.
Worry and think before you make any decision, but once you make it, be on
your way free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions
still awaiting you. That's the warrior's way."(2,3,63)

The challenge of a warrior is to arrive at a very subtle balance of positive and
negative forces. This challenge does not mean that a warrior should strive to
have everything under control, but that a warrior should strive to meet any
conceivable situation, the expected and the unexpected, with equal efficiency.
To be perfect under perfect circumstances is to be a paper warrior. (Vicente)
(6,15,308-309)

"When a man decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take
responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why
he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or

remorse about them. The simplest thing I do, to take you for a walk in the desert,
for instance, may very well mean my death. Death is stalking me. Therefore, I
have no room for doubts or remorse. If I have to die as a result of taking you for a
walk, then I must die. You, on the other hand, feel that you are immortal, and the
decisions of an immortal man can be canceled or regretted or doubted. In a world
where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time for regrets or doubts. There
is only time for decisions." (3,5,61-62)

"I have heard you say time and time again that you are always prepared to die. I
don't regard that feeling as necessary. I think it is a useless indulgence. A warrior
should be prepared only to battle. The spirit of a warrior is not geared to
indulging and complaining, nor is it geared to winning or losing. The spirit of a
warrior is geared only to struggle, and every struggle is a warrior's last battle on
earth. Thus the outcome matters very little to him. In his last battle on earth a
warrior lets his spirit flow free and clear. And as he wages his battle, knowing
that his will is impeccable, a warrior laughs and laughs."(2,14,259)

"Acts have power. Especially when the person acting knows that those acts are his
last battle. There is a strange consuming happiness in acting with the full
knowledge that whatever one is doing may very well be one's last acts on earth.
I recommend that you reconsider your life and bring your acts into that light."
(3,9,110)

"Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses
any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say
that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that
it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts
were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern."(2,5,107)

"It's possible to insist, to properly insist, even though we know that what we're
doing is useless. But we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we
must proceed as if we didn't know it. That's a warrior's controlled folly."(2,4,97)

"You asked me about my controlled folly and I told you that everything I do in
regard to myself and my fellow men is folly, because nothing matters. Certain
things in your life matter to you because they're important; your acts are
certainly important to you, but for me, not a single thing is important any
longer, neither my acts nor the acts of any of my fellow men. I go on living,
though, because I have my will. Because I have tempered my will throughout
my life until it's neat and wholesome and now it doesn't matter to me that
nothing matters. My will controls the folly of my life."(2,5,101)

"To worry is to become accessible, unwittingly accessible. And once you worry
you cling to anything out of desperation; and once you cling you are bound to get
exhausted or to exhaust whoever or whatever you are clinging to. To be
inaccessible means that you touch the world around you sparingly. He
[a warrior] is inaccessible because he's not squeezing his world out of shape. He
taps it lightly, stays for as long as he needs to, and then swiftly moves away
leaving hardly a mark." (3,7,94-95)

"You should know by now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking
about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished

acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then
he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows. He knows that
his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody
else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more
important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor,
no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under
these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a
man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him
he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control."
(2,5,106-107)

"All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance
that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between
an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of
his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter
pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess to pick it up. Usually we are
too busy, or too preoccupied, or just too stupid and lazy to realize that that is
our cubic centimeter of luck. A warrior, on the other hand, is always alert and
tight and has the spring, the gumption necessary to grab it." (3,18,278)

"It is up to us as single individuals to oppose the forces of our lives. I have said this
to you countless times: Only a warrior can survive. A warrior knows that he is
waiting and what he is waiting for; and while he waits he wants nothing and thus
whatever little thing he gets is more than he can take. If he needs to eat he finds
a way, because he is not hungry; if something hurts his body he finds a way to
stop it, because he is not in pain. To be hungry or to be in pain means that the
man has abandoned himself and is no longer a warrior; and the forces of his
hunger and pain will destroy him."(2,9,174)

"You must wait patiently, knowing that you're waiting, and knowing what you're
waiting for. That is the warrior's way. What makes us unhappy is to want. Yet
if we could learn to cut our wants to nothing, the smallest thing we'd get would
be a true gift. To be poor or wanting is only a thought; and so is to hate, or to
be hungry, or to be in pain."(2,9,173)

"The course of a warrior's destiny is unalterable. The challenge is how far he can
go in those rigid bounds, how impeccable he can be within those rigid bounds. If
there are obstacles in his path, the warrior strives impeccably to overcome them.
If he finds unbearable hardship and pain on his path, he weeps, but all his tears
put together could not move the line of his destiny the breadth of one hair."
(6,5,110)

There is no completeness without sadness and longing, for without them there is no
sobriety, no kindness. Wisdom without kindness and knowledge without sobriety
are useless. (7,Foreword,12)

"Who cares about sadness? Think only of the mysteries; mystery is all that matters.
We are living beings; we have to die and relinquish our awareness. But if we
could change just a tinge of that, what mysteries must await us! What mysteries!"
(7,17,283)

"A warrior treats everything with respect and does not trample on anything unless

he has to. A warrior does not abandon himself to anything, not even to his death.
A warrior is not a willing partner; a warrior is not available, and if he involves
himself with something, you can be sure that he is aware of what he's doing.
(2,12,218)

"All I can say to you is that a warrior is never available; never is he standing in the
road waiting to be clobbered. Thus he cuts to a minimum his chances of the
unforeseen. What you call accidents are, most of the time, very easy to avoid,
except for fools who are living helter-skelter."(2,12,220)

"A [warrior] hunter that is worth his salt does not catch game because he sets
his traps, or because he knows the routines of his prey, but because he himself
has no routines. This is his advantage. He is not at all like the animals he is
after, fixed by heavy routines and predictable quirks; he is free, fluid,
unpredictable. All of us behave like the prey we are after. That, of course,
also makes us prey for something or someone else. Now, the concern of a
[warrior] hunter, who knows all this, is to stop being a prey himself."
(3,8,100-101)

"You only have time to live like a warrior and work for patience and will, whether

you like it or not."(2,10,177)
"Perhaps the first thing that one should do is to know that one can develop the will.

A warrior knows that and proceeds to wait for it."(2,10,178)
"Will is a power. And since it is a power it has to be controlled and tuned and that

takes time."(2,10,179)
" ...a warrior learns to tune his will, to direct it to a pinpoint, to focus it wherever

he wants. It is as if his will, which comes from the midsection of the body, is one

single luminous fiber, a fiber that he can direct at any conceivable place."

(4,8,178)

"The body must be perfection before the will is a functioning unit." (4,3,86)
"Reason doesn't deal with man as energy. Reason deals with instruments that create
energy, but it has never seriously occurred to reason that we are better than
instruments: we are organisms that create energy. We are a bubble of energy."
(7,7,119)

"Everything is energy. The whole universe is energy. The social base of our
perception should be the physical certainty that energy is all there is. A mighty
effort should be made to guide us to perceive energy as energy. Then we would
have both alternatives at our fingertips. To perceive a world of hard objects that
had either a positive or a negative value must have been utterly necessary for our
ancestor's survival. After ages of perceiving in such a manner, we are now forced
to believe that the world is made of objects. I am saying that this is first a world of
energy; then it's a world of objects. If we don't start with the premise that it is a
world of energy, we'll never be able to perceive energy directly. We'll always be
stopped by the physical certainty of what you've just pointed out: the hardness of
objects. Our way of perceiving is a predator's way, a very efficient way of
appraising and classifying food and danger. But this is not the only way we are
able to perceive. There is another mode, the one I am familiarizing you with: the
act of perceiving the essence of everything, energy itself, directly. (9,1,3-4)

"When a man learns to see, not a single thing he knows prevails. Not a single one."
(2,13,235)

"Seeing is to lay bare the core of everything, to witness the unknown and to glimpse
into the unknowable. As such, it doesn't bring one solace." (7,4,65)

"Seeing is a peculiar feeling of knowing, of knowing something without a shadow of
doubt." (7,1,17)

"When I want to look at the world I see it the way you do. Then when I want
to see it I look at it the way I know and I perceive it in a different way. Things
don't change. You change your way of looking, that's all."(2,2,50)

"In the beginning seeing is confusing and it's easy to get lost in it. As the warrior
gets tighter, however, his seeing becomes what it should be, a direct knowing."
(4,7,154)

"Men look different when you see... [them as] fibers of light. Fibers, like white
cobwebs. Very fine threads that circulate from the head to the navel. Thus a man
looks like an egg of circulating fibers. And his arms and legs are like luminous
bristles, bursting out in all directions. Besides, every man is in touch with
everything else, not through his hands, though, but through a bunch of long
fibers that shoot out from the center of his abdomen. These fibers join a man
to his surroundings; they keep his balance; they give him stability. So, as you
may see some day, a man is a luminous egg whether he's a beggar or a king
and there's no way to change anything; or rather, what could be changed
in that luminous egg? What?"(2,l,33-34)

"When warriors see a human being, they see a giant, luminous shape that floats,
making, as it moves, a deep furrow in the energy of the earth, just as if the
luminous shape had a taproot that was dragging." (9,1,5)

"Upon learning to see a man becomes everything by becoming nothing."(2,10,186)

"We are men and our lot is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.
Seeing is for impeccable men. Temper your spirit now, become a warrior, learn
to see, and then you'll know that there is no end to the new worlds for our vision."
(2,10,187)

"It isn't that difficult to see. The difficulty is in breaking the retaining wall we all
have in our minds that holds us in place. To break it, all we need is energy. Once
we have energy, seeing happens to us by itself. The trick is in abandoning our fort
of self-complacency and false security." (9,1,9)

"When seers see, something explains everything as the new alignment takes place.
It's a voice that tells them in their ear what's what. If that voice is not present,
what the seer is engaged in isn't seeing. The voice of seeing for the new seers is
something quite incomprehensible; they say it's the glow of awareness playing on
the Eagle's emanations as a harpist plays on a harp." (7,4,66-67)

"I have always told you that sexual energy is something of ultimate importance and
that it has to be controlled and used with great care. But you have always
resented what I said, because you thought I was speaking of control in terms of
morality; I always meant it in terms of saving and rechanneling energy." (7,4,69)

"[Warriors] know that the only real energy we possess is a life-bestowing sexual
energy. This knowledge makes them permanently conscious of their

responsibility." (7,4,71)

"If warriors want to have enough energy to see, they must become misers with
their sexual energy. That was the lesson the nagual Julian gave us. He pushed
us into the unknown, and we all nearly died. Since everyone of us wanted to see,
we, of course, abstained from wasting our glow of awareness." (7,4,71)

"There is nothing wrong with man's sensuality. It's man's ignorance of and
disregard for his magical nature that is wrong. It's a mistake to waste recklessly
the life-bestowing force of sex and not have children, but it's also a mistake not
to know that in having children one taxes the glow of awareness. [Warriors] see
that on having a child, the parents glow of awareness diminishes and the child's
increases. In some supersensitive, frail parents, the glow of awareness almost
disappears. As children enhance their awareness, a big dark spot develops in the
luminous cocoon of the parents, on the very place from which the glow was taken
away. It is usually on the midsection of the cocoon. Sometimes those spots can
even be seen superimposed on the body itself." (7,4,72)

"Seers aim to be free, to be unbiased witnesses incapable of passing judgment..."
(7,4,72)

"To seek the perfection of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our
manhood. The hardest thing in the world is to assume the mood of a warrior.
It is of no use to be sad and complain and feel justified in doing so, believing
that someone is always doing something to us. Nobody is doing anything to
anybody, much less to a warrior." (3,11,138-139)

"The mood of a warrior calls for control over himself and at the same time it
calls for abandoning himself. It is a difficult technique." (3,11,140)

"A warrior makes his own mood. You didn't know that. Fear [Don Juan and
Castaneda were chased by a mountain lion] got you into the mood of a warrior,
but now that you know about it, anything can serve to get you into it. It's
convenient to always act in such a mood. It cuts through the crap and leaves one
purified. One needs the mood of a warrior for every single act. Otherwise one
becomes distorted and ugly. There is no power in a life that lacks this mood.
Look at yourself. Everything offends and upsets you. A warrior, on the other
hand ... calculates everything. That's control. But once his calculations are over,
he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. For a warrior there is nothing offensive about
the acts of his fellow men as long as he himself is acting within the proper mood.
The other night you were not offended by the lion. The fact that it chased us did
not anger you. I did not hear you cursing it, nor did I hear you say that he had no
right to follow us. To achieve the mood of a warrior is not a simple matter. It is a
revolution. To regard the lion ... and our fellow men as equals is a magnificent act
of the warrior's spirit. It takes power to do that." (3,11,149-151)

"Everything is equal and therefore unimportant. For example, there is no way for
me to say that my acts are more important than yours, or that one thing is more
essential than another, therefore all things are equal and by being equal they
are unimportant."(2,5,104)

"I'm never angry at anybody! No human being can do anything important
enough for that. You get angry at people when you feel their acts are

important. I don't feel that way any longer." (1,3,53)

" ...the worst thing one can do is to confront human beings bluntly. A warrior
proceeds strategically. If one wants to stop our fellow men one must always be
outside the circle that presses them. That way one can always direct the
pressure." (3,Introduction,ll)

"I don't hate anyone. I have learned that the countless paths one traverses in one's
life are all equal. Oppressors and oppressed meet at the end, and the only thing
that prevails is that life was altogether too short for both."(2,9,175)

"A warrior cannot be helpless or bewildered or frightened, not under any
circumstances. For a warrior there is time only for his impeccability;
everything else drains his power, impeccability replenishes it. Impeccability is
to do your best in whatever you're engaged in. As a rule of thumb, when you
feel and act like an immortal being that has all the time in the world you are
not impeccable; at those times you should turn, look around, and then you will
realize that your feeling of having time is an idiocy. There are no survivors on this
earth!" (4,9,194)

"Impeccability is nothing else but the proper use of energy... Warriors take
strategic inventories. They list everything they do. Then they decide which of
these things can be changed in order to allow themselves a respite, in terms of
expending their energy." (7,1,29)

"Impeccable warriors don't lose their marbles. They remain untouched. I've said to
you many times that impeccable warriors may see horrifying worlds and yet the
next moment they are telling a joke, laughing with their friends or with
strangers." (7,7,126)

"To be impeccable means to put your life on the line in order to back up your
decisions, and then to do quite a lot more than your best to realize those
decisions." (9,8,155)

"A warrior is impeccable when he trusts his personal power regardless of whether it
is small or enormous." (3,14,204)

"The warriors' world is not an immutable world like the world of everyday life,
where they tell you that once you reach a goal, you remain a winner forever. In
the warriors' world, to arrive at a certain goal means that you have simply
acquired the most efficient tools to continue your fight, which, by the way, will
never end." (12,14,213)

"A warrior never turns his back to power without atoning for favors received."
(3,12,169)

"Warriors don't leave any debts unpaid. It is time that you squared certain
indebtedness that you have incurred in the course of your life. Not that you will
ever pay in full, mind you, but you must make a gesture. You must make a token
payment in order to atone, to appease infinity. You have to make ... gifts that will
leave you penniless. That's the gesture. You must face this task with all the
gravity it deserves. It is your last stop before infinity swallows you. In fact, unless
a warrior is in a sublime state of being, infinity will not touch him with a ten-foot
pole. So, don't spare yourself; don't spare any effort. Push it mercilessly, but
elegantly, all the way through." (12,9,128-129)

"Every warrior, as a matter of duty, collects a special album, an album that reveals
the warrior's personality, an album that attests to the circumstances if his life.
But above all, it is like an album of pictures made out of memories, pictures made
out of the recollection of memorable events. My proposal is that you assemble this
album by putting in it the complete account of various events that have had
profound significance for you, events that have illuminated your path."
(12,Introduction,6)

"I should tell you that the selection of what to put in your album is not an easy
matter. This is the reason I say that making this album is an act of war. You have
to remake yourself ten times over in order to know what to select."
(12,Introduction,ll)

"The stories of a warrior's album are not personal. The memorable events we are

after have the dark touch of the impersonal. That touch permeates them."

(12,Introduction,14-15)
"The marvel of the warrior's way is that every warrior has to prove everything with

his own experience." (9,1,10)
A warrior knows that he is waiting and knows also what he is waiting for, and while

he waits he feasts his eyes on the world. (6,4,89)
The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy. (6,4,89)

Part 2 : Self-importance

"You dwell upon yourself too much. That's the trouble. And that produces a
terrible fatigue. Seek and see the marvels all around you. You will get tired
of looking at yourself alone, and that fatigue will make you deaf and blind
to everything else."(l,2,34-35)

"You think about yourself too much. And that gives you a strange fatigue that
makes you shut off the world around you and cling to your arguments. There-
fore, all you have is problems. I'm only a man too, but I don't mean that the
way you do. I've vanquished my problems. Too bad my life is so short that I
can't grab onto all the things I would like to. But that is not an issue; it's
only a pity."(2,Introduction,13)

"As long as you feel that you are the most important thing in the world you cannot
really appreciate the world around you. You are like a horse with blinders, all
you see is yourself apart from everything else." (3,3,42)

"Feeling important makes one heavy, clumsy, and vain. To be a man of knowledge
one needs to be light and fluid." (2,Introduction,16)

"We learn to think about everything, and then we train our eyes to look as we think
about the things we look at. We look at ourselves already thinking that we are
important. And therefore we've got to feel important! But then when a man
learns to see, he realizes that he can no longer think about the things he looks at,
and if he cannot think about what he looks at everything becomes unimportant."
(2,5,102)

In the strategic inventories of warriors, self-importance figures as the activity that
consumes the greatest amount of energy, hence, their effort to eradicate it. "One

of the first concerns of warriors is to free that energy in order to face the
unknown with it. The action of rechanneling that energy is impeccability."

(7,2,29)

"Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling
offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance
requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. The new seers
recommended that every effort should be made to eradicate self-importance from
the lives of warriors. I have followed that recommendation, and much of my
endeavors with you has been geared to show you that without self-importance
we are invulnerable." (7,1,26)

"To act in anger, without control and discipline, to have no forbearance, is to be
defeated." (7,1,43)

"You win, and you lose, and you don't know when you win or when you lose. This
is the price one pays for living under the rule of self -reflection." (12,14,210)

"The position of self-reflection forces the assemblage point to assemble a world of
sham compassion, but of very real cruelty and self-centeredness. In that world
the only real feelings are those convenient for the one who feels them." (8,4,174)

"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of
work is the same." (3,15,221)

"[Speaking to Castaneda] I already know that you think that you are rotten. That's
your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to recommend that you
learn another doing. From now on, and for a period of eight days, I want you to
lie to yourself. Instead of telling yourself the truth, that you are ugly and rotten
and inadequate, you will tell yourself that you are the complete opposite, knowing
that you are lying and that you are completely beyond hope. It may hook you to
another doing and then you may realize that both doings are lies, unreal, and that
to hinge yourself to either one is a waste of time, because the only thing that is real
is the being in you that is going to die. To arrive at that being is the not-doing of
the self." (3,15,239)

The most effective strategy [for erasing self-importance] consists of six elements
that interplay with one another. Five of them are called the attributes of
warriorship: control, discipline, forbearance, timing, and will. The sixth element,
which is perhaps the most important of all, pertains to the outside world and is
called the petty tyrant. "A petty tyrant is a tormentor. Someone who holds the
power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction. Four
attributes [the first four] are all that is needed to deal with the worst of petty
tyrants. Provided, of course, that a petty tyrant has been found. My benefactor
used to say that the warrior who stumbles on a petty tyrant is a lucky one. He
meant that you're fortunate if you come upon one in your path, because if you
don't, you have to go out and look for one." If warriors can hold their own in
facing petty tyrants, they can certainly face the unknown with impunity, and then
they can even stand the presence of the unknowable. "We know that nothing can
temper the spirit of a warrior as much as the challenge of dealing with impossible
people in positions of power. Only under those conditions can warriors acquire
the sobriety and serenity to stand the pressure of the unknowable." (7,2,29-33)

A warrior has to be utterly humble and carry nothing to defend, not even one's
person. One's person should be protected, but not defended. (Hermelinda)
(6,10,198)

"Don't explain yourself so much. Warriors say that in every explanation there is a
hidden apology. So, when you are explaining why you cannot do this or that,
you're really apologizing for your shortcomings, hoping that whoever is listening
to you will have the kindness to understand them." (12,Introduction,19)

On remorse: Don Juan's recommendation was that one should not have remorse for
anything one has done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil
is to place an unwarranted importance on the self. (3,15,220-221)

"Warriors are incapable of feeling compassion [they feel empathy] because they no
longer feel sorry for themselves. Without the driving force of self-pity,
compassion is meaningless. For a warrior everything begins and ends with
himself. However, his contact with the abstract [the spirit] causes him to
overcome his feeling of self-importance. Then the self becomes abstract and
impersonal." (8,2,51-52)

"As a hunter, a warrior knows that the world is made to be used. So he uses every
bit of it. A warrior is like a pirate that has no qualms in taking and using
anything he wants, except that the warrior doesn't mind or he doesn't feel
insulted when he is used and taken himself." (3,16,254)

"Warriors prepare themselves to be aware, and full awareness comes to them only
when there is no more self-importance left in them. Only when they are nothing
do they become everything." (7,8,134)

"You know what we do with paper in Mexico."(2,l,29)

Part 3 : The Spirit

"Once upon a time there was a man, an average man without any special attributes.
He was, like everyone else, a conduit for the spirit. And by virtue of that, like
everyone else, he was part of the spirit, part of the abstract. But he didn't know it.
The world kept him so busy that he had neither the time nor the inclination really
to examine the matter. The spirit tried, uselessly, to reveal their connection. Using
an inner voice, the spirit disclosed its secrets, but the man was incapable of
understanding the revelations. Naturally, he heard the inner voice, but he
believed it to be his own feelings he was feeling and his own thoughts he was
thinking. The spirit, in order to shake him out of his slumber, gave him three
signs, three successive manifestations. The spirit physically crossed the man's
path in the most obvious manner. But the man was oblivious to anything but his
own self-concern." (8,1,25-26)

"Warriors say that the spirit's descent is always shrouded. It happens and yet it
seems not to have happened at all." (8,4,108)

"The spirit manifests itself to a warrior, especially to a nagual, at every turn.
However, this is not the entire truth. The entire truth is that the spirit reveals
itself to everyone with the same intensity and consistency, but only warriors, and

naguals in particular, are attuned to such revelations." (8,1,34)

"Intent creates edifices before us and invites us to enter them. This is the way
warriors understand what is happening around them." (8,2,47)

"For a warrior, the spirit is an abstract simply because he knows it without words
or even thoughts. It's an abstract because he can't conceive what the spirit is.
Yet without the slightest chance or desire to understand it, a warrior handles the
spirit. He recognizes it, beckons it, entices it, becomes familiar with it, and
expresses it with his acts. Consider this. It was not the act of meeting me that
mattered to you. The day I met you, you met the abstract. But since you couldn't
talk about it, you didn't notice it. Warriors meet the abstract without thinking
about it or seeing it or touching it or feeling its presence." (8,2,58-59)

"Silent knowledge is something that all of us have, something that has complete
mastery, complete knowledge of everything. But it cannot think, therefore, it
cannot speak of what it knows. Warriors believe that when man became aware
that he knew, and wanted to be conscious of what he knew, he lost sight of what
he knew. This silent knowledge, which you cannot describe, is, of course, intent -
the spirit, the abstract. Man's error was to want to know it directly, the way he
knew everyday life. The more he wanted, the more ephemeral it became. It means
that man gave up silent knowledge for the world of reason. The more he clings to
the world of reason, the more ephemeral intent becomes." (8,4,167)

Silent knowledge is nothing but direct contact with intent, the spirit, the abstract.
(8,4,124)

In the universe there is an unmeasurable, indescribable force which warriors call
intent, and that absolutely everything that exists in the entire cosmos is attached
to intent by a connecting link. Warriors are concerned with discussing,
understanding, and employing that connecting link. They are especially
concerned with cleaning it of the numbing effects brought about by the ordinary
concerns of their everyday lives. The warrior's way at this level could be
defined as the procedure of cleaning one's connecting link to intent. Don Juan
stressed this "cleaning procedure" was extremely difficult to understand, or to
learn to perform. (8,Introduction,12)

"The only way to know intent is to know it directly through a living connection
that exists between intent and all sentient beings. Warriors call intent the
indescribable, the spirit, the abstract, the nagual. I would prefer to call it nagual,
but it overlaps with the name for the leader, the benefactor, who is also called
nagual, so I have opted for calling it the spirit, intent, the abstract." (8,1,31)

"What you're witnessing is the result of a lifelong struggle. What you see is a
warrior who has finally learned to follow the designs of the spirit, but that's all.
I have described to you, in many ways, the different stages a warrior passes
through along the path of knowledge. In terms of his connection with intent, a
warrior goes through four stages. The first is when he has a rusty, untrustworthy
link with intent. The second is when he succeeds in cleaning it. The third is when
he learns to manipulate it. And the fourth is when he learns to accept the designs
of the abstract." (8,6,247)

"Infinity is everything that surrounds us. The warriors of my lineage call it infinity,

the spirit, the dark sea of awareness, and say that it is something that exists out
there and rules our lives. What put you and me together was the intent of infinity.
It is impossible to determine what this intent of infinity is, yet it is there, as
palpable as you and I are. Warriors say that it is a tremor in the air. The
advantage of warriors is to know that the tremor in the air exists, and to acquiesce
to it without any further ado. For warriors there's no pondering, wondering, or
speculating. They know that all they have is the possibility of merging with the
intent of infinity, and they just do it." (12,4,72)
"You must remember that intent begins with a command." (7,Epilogue,293)
"Consider this very carefully: our command becomes the Eagle's command."
(7,7,125)

"That is the nature of power. As I told you before, it commands you and yet it is at
your command." (3,12,166)

"It will be a long time before you can apply the principle that your command is the
Eagle's command. That's the essence of the mastery of intent. In the meantime,
make a command now not to fret, not even in the worst moments of doubt. It will
be a slow process until that command is heard and obeyed as if it were the Eagle's
command." (7,16,257)

A warrior must evoke intent. The glance is the secret. The eyes beckon intent.
(Silvio Manuel) (6,15,310)

"The only way of talking about it is to say that intent is intended with the eyes. They
summon intent with something indefinable that they have, something in their
shine. Warriors say that intent is experienced with the eyes, not with the reason.
I've told you over and over that being too rational is a handicap. Human beings
have a very deep sense of magic. We are part of the mysterious. Rationality is
only a veneer with us. If we scratch that surface, we find a sorcerer underneath.
(8,5,187-188)

"Every one of us human beings has two minds. One is totally ours, and it is like a
faint voice that always brings us order, directness, purpose. The other mind is a
foreign installation. It brings us conflict, self-assertion, doubts, hopelessness. To
resolve the conflict of the two minds is a matter of intending it. Warriors beckon
intent by voicing the word intent loud and clear. Intent is a force that exists in the
universe. When warriors beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up the path for
attainment, which means that warriors always accomplish what they set out to do.
Intent can be called, of course, for anything, but warriors have found out, the
hard way, that intent comes to them only for something that is abstract. That's
the safety valve for warriors; otherwise they would be unbearable. In your case,
beckoning intent to resolve the conflict of your two minds, or to hear the voice of
your true mind, is not a petty or arbitrary matter. Quite the contrary; it is
ethereal and abstract, and yet as vital to you as anything can be."
(12,Introduction,9-10)

"The path of knowledge is a forced one. In order to learn we must be spurred. In
the path of knowledge we are always fighting something, avoiding something,
prepared for something; and that something is always inexplicable, greater,
more powerful than us. The inexplicable forces will come to you."(2,14,257)

"Infinity is claiming you. Whatever means it uses to point that out to you cannot
have any other reason, any other cause, any other value than that. What you
should do, however, is to be prepared for the onslaughts of infinity. You must be
in a state of continuously bracing yourself for a blow of tremendous magnitude.
That is the sane, sober way in which warriors face infinity.'''' (12,12,173)

The Nagual Elias On The Three Points (8,6,259-261)
The first point: Reason
The second point: The place of no pity
The third point: Silent knowledge
To get to the third point from the first point, one must pass the second point, the
place of no pity. All are positions of the assemblage point.

The one-way bridge from silent knowledge to reason is called "concern." That
is, the concern that true men of silent knowledge had about the source of what they
knew. The other one-way bridge, from reason to silent knowledge, is called "pure
understanding." That is, the recognition that told the man of reason that reason was
only one island in an endless sea of islands. A human being who has both one-way
bridges working is a warrior in direct contact with the spirit, the vital force that
makes both positions possible.

"Malicious acts are performed by people for personal gain. Warriors, though, have
an ulterior purpose for their acts, which has nothing to do with personal gain.
The fact that they enjoy their acts does not count as gain. Rather, it is a condition
of their character. The average man acts only if there is a chance for profit.
Warriors say they act not for profit but for the spirit." (8,3,99)

Most of the really unusual things that happen to seers, or to the average man for
that matter, happen by themselves, with only the intervention of intent.
(7,15,237)

"Turn everything into what it really is: the abstract, the spirit, the nagual. There
is no witchcraft, no evil, no devil. There is only perception." (8,6,231)

Part 4 : This Mysterious Earth

"The world around us is very mysterious. It doesn't yield its secrets easily."
(3,3,42)

"The world is incomprehensible. We won't ever understand it; we won't ever
unravel its secrets. Thus we must treat it as it is, a sheer mystery! An average
man doesn't do this, though, the world is never a mystery for him, and when he
arrives at old age he is convinced he has nothing more to live for. An old man has
not exhausted the world. He has exhausted only what people do. But in his stupid
confusion he believes that the world has no more mysteries for him. A warrior is
aware of this confusion and learns to treat things properly. The things that people
do cannot under any conditions be more important than the world. And thus a
warrior treats the world as an endless mystery and what people do as an endless

folly."(2,14,264-265)

"The world is a mystery. This, what you're looking at, is not all there is to it. There
is much more to the world, so much more, in fact, that it is endless. So when
you're trying to figure it out, all you're really doing is trying to make the world
familiar. You and I are right here, in the world you call real, simply because we
both know it. You don't know the world of power, therefore you cannot make it
into a familiar scene." (3,12,168)

"One must assume responsibility for being in a weird world. We are in a weird
world, you know. For you the world is weird because if you're not bored with
it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is stupendous,
awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that
you must assume responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this
marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must
learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short time,
in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it." (3,9,107)

"The old seers saw that the earth has a cocoon. They saw that there is a ball encasing
the earth, a luminous cocoon that entraps the Eagle's emanations. The earth is a
gigantic sentient being subjected to the same forces we are." They considered the
earth to be the ultimate source of everything we are. The old seers were not
mistaken in this respect, because the earth is indeed our ultimate source.
(7,13,205)

Thousands of years ago, warriors became aware that the earth is sentient and that
its awareness could affect the awareness of humans. They tried to find a way to
use the earth's influence on human awareness and they discovered that certain
caves were the most effective. (8,4,120)

"...there are powers on this earth that guide men and animals and everything
that is living. Powers that guide our lives and deaths." (3,9,106)

One of the most dramatic legacies the old seers have left us is their discovery that
the reason for the existence of all sentient beings is to enhance awareness. They
saw that it is the Eagle who bestows awareness. "They saw that the awareness of
sentient beings flies away at the moment of death and floats like a luminous
cotton puff right into the Eagle's beak to be consumed. For the old seers that was
the evidence that sentient beings live only to enrich the awareness that is the
Eagle's food." (7,3,50-51)

"Every warrior has a place to die. A place of his predilection which is soaked with
unforgettable memories, where powerful events left their mark, a place where he
has witnessed marvels, where secrets have been revealed to him, a place where he
has stored his personal power. A warrior has the obligation to go back to that
place of predilection every time he taps power in order to store it there. He either
goes there by means of walking or by means of dreaming. And finally, one day
when his time on earth is up and he feels the tap of his death on his left shoulder,
his spirit, which is always ready, flies to the place of his predilection and there the
warrior dances to his death. If a dying warrior has limited power, his dance is
short; if his power is grandiose, his dance is magnificent. But regardless of
of whether his power is small or magnificent, death must stop to witness his last

stand on earth. Death cannot overtake the warrior who is recounting the toil of
his life for the last time until he has finished his dance." (3,13,187-188)

"The life of a warrior cannot possibly be cold and lonely and without feelings
because it is based on his affection, his devotion, his dedication to his beloved.
And who, you may ask, is his beloved? This earth, this world. For a warrior there
can be no greater love. Only if one loves this earth with unbending passion can
one release one's sadness. A warrior is always joyful because his love is
unalterable and his beloved, the earth, embraces him and bestows upon him
inconceivable gifts. The sadness belongs only to those who hate the very thing
that gives shelter to their beings. This lovely being, which is alive to its last
recesses and understands every feeling, soothed me, it cured me of my pains,
and finally when I had fully understood my love for it, it taught me freedom.
Only the love for this splendorous being can give freedom to a warrior's spirit;
and freedom is joy, efficiency, and abandon in the face of any odds That is the last
lesson. It is always left for the very last moment, for the moment of ultimate
solitude when a man faces his death and his aloneness. Only then does it make
sense." (4,14,283-286)

Warriors speak of the warrior's way as a magical, mysterious bird which has
paused in its flight for a moment in order to give man hope and purpose; that
warriors live under the wing of that bird, which they call the bird of wisdom, the
bird of freedom; that they nourish it with their dedication and impeccability.
Warriors know the flight of the bird of freedom is always a straight line, since it
has no way of making a loop, no way of circling back and returning; and that the
bird of freedom could do only two things, take warriors along, or leave them
behind. Warriors should not forget, even for an instant, that the bird of freedom
has very little patience with indecision, and when it flies away, it never returns.
(8,1,42-44)

Part 5 : The Internal Dialogue

"You think and talk too much. You must stop talking to yourself. You talk to
yourself too much. You're not unique at that. Every one of us does that. We
carry on an internal talk. We talk about our world. In fact we maintain our
world with our internal talk. Whenever we finish talking to ourselves the world
is always as it should be. We renew it, we kindle it with life, we uphold it with
our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to
ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day that we
die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the
day we die. A warrior is aware of this and strives to stop his talking."(2,14,263)

"The first act of a teacher is to introduce the idea that the world we think we see is
only a view, a description of the world. Every effort of a teacher is geared to prove
this point to his apprentice. But accepting it seems to be one of the hardest things
one can do; we are complacently caught in our particular view of the world,
which compels us to feel and act as if we knew everything about the world. A
teacher, from the very first act he performs, aims at stopping that view.
Warriors call it stopping the internal dialogue, and they are convinced that it is

the single most important technique that an apprentice can learn." (4,12,231)
" ... the internal dialogue is what grounds us. The world is such and such or so and
so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so."
(4,1,22)

"Seeing happens only when one is capable of shutting off the internal dialogue."
(4,1,34)

"The internal dialogue stops in the same way that it begins: by an act of will. We
will ourselves to talk to ourselves. The way to stop talking to ourselves is to use
exactly the same method: we must will it, we must intend it. (7,8,137)

"The explanation [of how the internal dialogue is stopped] is simplicity itself. You
willed it, and thus you set a new intent, a new command. Then your command
becomes the Eagle's command. (7,8,137)

"The old seers used to say that if warriors are going to have an internal dialogue,
they should have a proper dialogue. For the old seers that meant a dialogue about
sorcery and the enhancement of their self-reflection. For the new seers it doesn't
mean dialogue, but the detached manipulation of intent through sober
commands." (7,Epilogue,293)

One procedure for shutting off the internal dialogue: ...walking for long distances
without focusing the eyes on anything. The recommendation was to not look at
anything directly but, by slightly crossing the eyes, to keep a peripheral view of
everything that presented itself to the eyes. If one kept one's unfocused eyes at a
point just above the horizon, it was possible to notice, at once, everything in
almost the total 180-degree range in front of one's eyes. (4,1,21) [Also, the fingers
on both hands should be slightly curled. (4,12,232)]

"[Power plants] opened you up by stopping your view of the world. In this respect
power plants have the same effect ... as the right way of walking. Both flood [you]
with information and force the internal dialogue to come to a stop. The plants are
excellent for that, but very costly. They cause untold damage to the body. This is
their drawback, especially the devil's weed [datura; aka jimson weed]." (4,12,238)

Facilitating the advent of inner silence: Sit down on one's bed, with the knees bent
and the soles of the feet touching, the hands pushing the feet together by holding
the ankles. Place a thick, fourteen-inch dowel between the feet and place the other
end, which is cushioned, against the middle of the forehead. Then fall asleep in
this position. (12,7,113-114)

One of the most coveted results of inner silence is a specific interplay of energy,
which is always heralded by a strong emotion. Such an interplay manifests
itself in terms of hues that are projected on any horizon in the world of ordinary
life, be it a mountain, the sky, the wall, or simply the palms of the hands. This
interplay of hues begins with a tenuous brushstroke of lavender on the horizon.
In time, this lavender brushstroke starts to expand until it covers the visible
horizon, like advancing storm clouds. A dot of a peculiar, rich, pomegranate red
shows up, as if bursting from the lavender clouds. As warriors become more
disciplined and experienced, the dot of pomegranate expands and finally explodes
into thoughts or visions, or in the case of a literate man, into written words;
warriors either see visions engendered by energy, hear thoughts being voiced as

words, or read written words. (12,12,174)

Inner silence is a peculiar state of being in which thoughts are canceled out and one
can function from a level other than that of daily awareness. Inner silence means
the suspension of the internal dialogue. ..and is therefore a state of profound
quietude. "The old sorcerers called it inner silence because it is a state in which
perception doesn't depend on the senses. What is at work during inner silence is
another faculty that man has, the faculty that makes him a magical being...
Inner silence is the stand from which everything stems..." The sorcerers of
ancient Mexico devised endless ways to shake themselves or other sorcery
practitioners at their foundations in order to reach that coveted state of inner
silence. Each individual has a different threshold of inner silence in terms of time,
meaning that inner silence must be kept by each of us for the length of time of our
specific threshold before it can work. "Inner silence works from the moment you
begin to accrue it. What the old sorcerers were after was the final, dramatic, end
result of reaching that individual threshold of silence. The desired result is what
the old sorcerers called stopping the world, the moment when everything around
us ceases to be what it's always been. It is the moment when man the slave
becomes man the free being, capable of feats of perception that defy our linear
imagination. Warriors need a breaking point for the workings of inner silence to
set in, every warrior I know, male or female, sooner or later arrives at a breaking
point in their lives. What I mean is that a given moment the continuity of their
lives has to break in order for inner silence to set in and become an active part of
their structures. Your breaking point is to discontinue your life as you know it.
You must leave your friends. You must say goodbye to them, for good. They are
your points of reference. Therefore, they have to go. Warriors have only one
point of reference: infinity. You must simply leave. Leave any way you can. My
recommendation is that you rent a room in one of those chintzy hotels you know.
The uglier the place, the better. A warrior uses a place like that to die. You will
stay in that room until you die. I don't want your body to die physically. I want
your person to die. Your person is your mind... The criteria that indicates that a
warrior is dead is when it makes no difference to him whether he has company or
whether he is alone. The day you don't covet the company of your friends, whom
you use as shields, that's the day that your person has died." (12,7,103-108)

"A warrior is aware that the world will change as soon as he stops talking to
himself, and he must be prepared for that monumental jolt." (2,14,264)

"The magic key that opens the earth's doors is made of internal silence plus
anything that shines." (7,13,204)

Part 6 : The Assemblage Point

There is no objective world, but only a universe of energy fields which seers call
the Eagle's emanations. Human beings are made of the Eagle's emanations and
are in essence bubbles of luminescent energy; each of us is wrapped in a cocoon
that encloses a small portion of these emanations. Awareness is achieved by the

constant pressure that the emanations outside our cocoons, which are called
emanations at large, exert on those inside our cocoons. That awareness gives rise
to perception, which happens when the emanations inside our cocoons align
themselves with the corresponding emanations at large. "The next truth is that
perception takes place because in each of us there is an agent called the
assemblage point that selects internal and external emanations for alignment. The
particular alignment that we perceive as the world is the product of the specific
spot where our assemblage point is located on our cocoon." (7,7,114-115)

The position of the assemblage point on the luminous ball: It is a round spot of
intense brilliance, the size of a tennis ball. It is lodged in the luminous ball, flush
with its surface, about two feet back from the crest of a person's right shoulder
blade. Around it is a glow, a halo. (9,1,5-7)

"...the position of the assemblage point dictates how we behave and how we feel."
(7,12,200)

"What a strange feeling: to realize that everything we think, everything we say
depends on the position of the assemblage point." (8,4,109)

"In order to be unbiased witnesses, we begin by understanding that the fixation or
the movement of the assemblage point is all there is to us and the world we
witness, whatever that world might be." (7,9,153)

Perception and the assemblage point: Perception is the hinge for everything man is
or does and perception is ruled by the location of the assemblage point. Therefore,
if that point changes positions, man's perception of the world changes
accordingly. The warrior who knows exactly where to place his assemblage point
can become anything he wants. (8,3,76-77)

The internal dialogue is what keeps the assemblage point fixed to its original
position. "Once [internal] silence is attained, everything is possible." (7,8,137)

"Our enemy and at the same time our friend is the internal dialogue, our inventory.
Be a warrior; shut off your internal dialogue; make your inventory and then
throw it away. The new seers make accurate inventories and then laugh at them.
Without the inventory the assemblage point becomes free." I've talked a great
deal about one of the most sturdy aspects of our inventory: our idea of God. That
aspect is like a powerful glue that binds the assemblage point to its original
position. The old seers as well as the mystics of our world have one thing in
common - they have been able to see the mold of man but not understand what it
is. Mystics, throughout the centuries, have given us moving accounts of their
experiences. But these accounts, however beautiful, are flawed by the gross and
despairing mistake of believing the mold of man to be an omnipotent, omniscient
creator... The new seers are the only ones who have the sobriety to see the mold of
man and understand what it is. What they have come to realize is that the mold of
man is not a creator, but the pattern of every human attribute we can think of
and some we cannot even conceive. The mold is our God because we are what it
stamps us with and not because it has created us from nothing and made us in its
image and likeness. In my opinion to fall on our knees in the presence of the mold
of man reeks of arrogance and human self-centeredness. Anyone who sees the
mold of man assumes that it is God. That mystical experience is a chance seeing,

a one-shot affair that has no significance whatsoever because it is the result of a
random movement of the assemblage point. The new seers are indeed the only
ones who can pass a fair judgment on this matter, because they have ruled out
chance seeings and are capable of seeing the mold of man as often as they please.
They have seen, therefore, that what we call God is a static prototype of
humanness without any power. For the mold of man cannot under any
circumstances help us by intervening on our behalf, or punish our wrongdoings,
or reward us in any way. We are simply the products of its stamp...
(7,16,256-261)

"The position of the assemblage point ... is maintained by the internal dialogue, and
because of that, it is a flimsy position at best. That's why men and women lose
their minds so easily, especially those whose internal dialogue is repetitious,
boring, and without any depth. The new seers say that the more resilient human
beings are those whose internal dialogue is more fluid and varied." (7,9,158)

Events difficult to explain ... are really very simple. They are made difficult by our
insistence upon thinking. If we do not think everything fits into place. "Of course
I insist that everyone around me think clearly. And I explain, to anyone who
wants to listen, that the only way to think clearly is to not think at all." For a
warrior there are two types of thinking. One is average day-to-day thinking,
which is ruled by the normal position of the assemblage point. It is muddled
thinking that does not really answer one's needs and leaves great murkiness in the
head. The other is precise thinking. It is functional, economical, and leaves very
few things unexplained. For this type of thinking to prevail the assemblage point
has to move. Or at least the day-to-day type thinking has to stop to allow the
assemblage point to shift. Thus the apparent contradiction, which is really no
contradiction at all. (8,4,143)

Inside every human being is a gigantic, dark lake of silent knowledge which each of
us can intuit. An apprentice warrior can intuit it with perhaps a bit more clarity
than the average man because of his involvement with the warrior's path.
Warriors are the only beings on earth who deliberately go beyond the intuitive
level by training themselves to do two transcendental things: first, to conceive the
existence of the assemblage point, and second, to make that assemblage point
move. (8,4,164-165)

" It goes without saying that the most difficult thing in the warrior's path is to make
the assemblage point move. That movement is the completion of the warrior's
quest. To go on from there is another quest; it is the seer's quest proper."
(7,12,196)

"I once told you that the nagual Julian recommended us not to waste our sexual
energy. He meant that for the assemblage point to shift, one needs energy."
(Don Genaro) (7,9,150)

"Any movement of the assemblage point is like dying. Everything in us gets
disconnected, then reconnected again to a source of much greater power. That
amplification of energy is felt as a killing anxiety. [Castaneda asks, "What am I
to do when this happens?"] Nothing. Just wait, the outburst of energy will pass.
What's dangerous is not knowing what is happening to you. Once you know,

there is no real danger." (8,4,169)

A shift in the assemblage point is marked by a change in light. In the daytime, light
becomes very dark; at night, darkness becomes twilight. (7,15,244)

When the assemblage point is moving away from its customary position and reaches
a certain depth, it breaks a barrier that momentarily disrupts its capacity to align
emanations. We experience it as a moment of perceptual blankness. The old seers
called that moment the wall of fog, because a bank of fog appears whenever the
alignment of emanations falters. There are three ways of dealing with it. It could
be taken abstractly as a barrier of perception; it could be felt as the act of
piercing a tight paper screen with the entire body; or it could be seen as a wall of
fog. (7,16,254-255)

"...when man's assemblage point moves beyond a crucial limit...the assemblage
point assembles other worlds, aided by the boost from the earth." (7,13,213)

"When the old sorcerers finished mapping human beings as luminous spheres, they
had discovered no less that six hundred spots in the total luminous sphere that
were the sites of bona fide worlds. Meaning that, if the assemblage point became
attached to any of those places, the result was the entrance of the practitioner into
a total new world." (10,5,118)

For warriors the danger of assembling other worlds is that those worlds are as
possessive as our world. The force of alignment is such that once the assemblage
point breaks away from its normal position, it becomes fixed at other positions,
by other alignments. And warriors run the risk of getting stranded in
inconceivable aloneness. (7,18,290)

"Alignment has to be a peaceful, unnoticeable act. No flying away, no great fuss."
(7,13,216)

The two types of assemblage point displacement: One is a displacement to any
position on the surface or in the interior of the luminous ball. This displacement
is called a shift of the assemblage point. The other is a displacement to a position
outside the luminous ball. It is called a movement of the assemblage point. When
the assemblage point moves outside the luminous ball it pushes the contours of the
energy shape out, without breaking its energy boundaries. (9,1,9,12)

The Third Point: Every nagual consistently does everything within his power to
encourage the free movement of his apprentices' assemblage points. This all-out
effort is called "reaching out for the third point." "Only warriors can turn their
feelings into intent. Intent is the spirit, so it is the spirit which moves their
assemblage points. The third point of reference is freedom of perception; it is
intent; it is the spirit; the somersault of thought into the miraculous; the act of
reaching beyond our boundaries and touching the inconceivable." (8,5,244-245)

The problem facing those new to the warrior's way: The specific problem of
warriors is two-fold. One is the impossibility of restoring a shattered continuity;
the other is the impossibility of using the continuity dictated by the new position
of their assemblage points. That new continuity is always too tenuous, too
unstable, and does not offer warriors the assuredness they need to function as if
they were in the world of everyday life. "The spirit either resolves it for us or it
doesn't. If it does, a warrior finds himself acting in the warrior's world, but

without knowing how. This is the reason why I have insisted from the
day I found you that impeccability is all that counts. A warrior lives an
impeccable life, and that seems to beckon the solution. Why? No one knows.
Impeccability ... is not morality. It only resembles morality. Impeccability is
simply the best use of our energy level. Naturally, it calls for frugality,
thoughtfulness, simplicity, innocence; and above all, it calls for lack of
self-reflection. All this makes it sound like a manual for monastic life, but it
isn't. Warriors say that in order to command the spirit, and by that they mean to
command the movement of the assemblage point, one needs energy. The only
thing that stores energy for us is our impeccability." (8,6,248-249)

"The conviction that the new seers have is that a life of impeccability by itself leads
unavoidably to a sense of sobriety, and this in turn leads to a movement of the
assemblage point. (7,11,178)

"My benefactor told me that my mother and father had lived and died just to have
me, and that their own parents had done the same for them. He said that warriors
are different in that they shift their assemblage points enough to realize the
tremendous price that has been paid for their lives." (7,12,202)

"The new seers recommend a very simple act when impatience, or despair, or
anger, or sadness comes their way. They recommend that warriors roll their eyes.
Any direction will do; I prefer to roll mine clockwise. The movement of the eyes
makes the assemblage point shift momentarily. In that movement you will find
relief. This is in lieu of true mastery of intent." (7,16,258)

"Repeat to yourself incessantly that the hinge of the warrior's way is the mystery of
the assemblage point. If you repeat this to yourself long enough, some unseen
force takes over and makes the appropriate changes in you." (9,9,172)

"Remember what I've told you. Don't count on emotional realizations. Let your
assemblage point move first, then years later have the realization. (7,12,186)

Part 7 : Stalking

"The purpose of stalking is twofold: first, to move the assemblage point as steadily
and safely as possible, and nothing can do the job as well as stalking; second, to
imprint its principles at such a deep level that the human inventory is bypassed,
as is the natural reaction of refusing and judging something that may be offensive
to reason." (7,12,187)

"The very first principle of the art of stalking is that a warrior stalks himself. He
stalks himself ruthlessly, cunningly, patiently, and sweetly." (8,3,101)

The Nagual Julian on Stalking: Stalking is an art applicable to everything we do.
There are four steps to learning it: ruthlessness, cunning, patience, and sweetness.
But one must understand that ruthlessness should not be harshness, cunning
should not be cruelty, patience should not be negligence, and sweetness should not
be foolishness. Be ruthless but charming. Be cunning but nice. Be patient but
active. Be sweet but lethal. The art of stalking is learning all the quirks of your
disguise. And it is to learn them so well that no one will know that you are

disguised. (8,3,85-88)
"Some warriors object to the term stalking, but the name came about because it
entails surreptitious behavior. It's also called the art of stealth, but that term is
equally unfortunate. We ourselves, because of our nonmilitant temperament, call
it the art of controlled folly. You can call it anything you wish. We, however, will
continue with the term stalking since it's so easy to say stalker and, as my
benefactor used to say, so awkward to say controlled folly maker.'''' (8,3,102)

Florinda's Principles Of Stalking (6,14,280-283,293)

1. Warriors choose their battleground. A warrior never goes into battle without
knowing what the surroundings are.

2. Discard everything that is not necessary.

3. Any battle is a battle for one's life. A warrior must be willing and ready to make
his last stand here and now.

4. Relax, abandon yourself, fear nothing. Only then will the powers that guide us
open the road and aid us.

5. When faced with odds that cannot be dealt with, warriors retreat for a moment.
Don't let yourself wander away.

6. Warriors compress time, even an instant counts. Warriors don't waste an instant.

7. A stalker never pushes himself to the front.

"A warrior is never idle and never in a hurry." (2,13,232)

Florinda's Three Precepts Of The Art Of Stalking (6,14,283)

1. The first precept of the rule is that everything that surrounds us is an
unfathomable mystery.

2. The second precept of the rule is that we must try to unravel these mysteries,
but without ever hoping to accomplish this.

3. The third, that a warrior, aware of the unfathomable mystery that surrounds
him and aware of his duty to unravel it, takes his rightful place among mysteries
and regards himself as one. Consequently, for a warrior there is no end to the
mystery of being, whether being means being a pebble, or an ant, or oneself.
That is a warrior's humbleness. One is equal to everything.

Florinda's Three Results of the Principles of Stalking (6,14,93)

1. Stalkers learn to never take themselves seriously; they learn to laugh at
themselves. If they're not afraid of being a fool, they can fool anyone.

2. Stalkers learn to have endless patience. Stalkers are never in a hurry; they never
fret.

3. Stalkers learn to have an endless capacity to improvise.

The Nagual Elias On Intending Appearances (8,6,281-282)
The nagual Elias maintained that appearance was the essence of controlled folly,
and stalkers created appearances by intending them, rather than by producing them
with the aid of props. Props create artificial appearances that look false to the eye.
In this respect, intending appearances is exclusively an exercise for stalkers.

Appearances are solicited from the spirit. Appearances were asked, were forcefully
called on; they were never invented rationally.

"A nagual never lets anyone know that he is in charge. A nagual comes and goes
without leaving a trace. That freedom is what makes him a nagual." (7,13,210)

"It is best to erase all personal history because that would make us free from the
encumbering thoughts of other people." (3,2,32)

"Words are tremendously powerful and important and are the magical property of
whoever has them." (8,3,101)

The Nagual Elias On Stalking (8,6,258,262)
The sound and the meaning of words are of supreme importance to stalkers.
Words are used by them as keys to open anything that is closed. Stalkers, therefore,
have to state their aim before attempting to achieve it. But they cannot reveal their
true aim at the outset, so they have to word things carefully to conceal the main
thrust. This act is called waking up intent. The spirit only listens when the speaker
speaks in gestures. And gestures do not mean signs or body movements, but acts of
true abandon, acts of largesse, of humor. As a gesture for the spirit, warriors bring
out the best of themselves and silently offer it to the abstract.

"One of the great maneuvers of stalkers is to pit the mystery against the stupidity
in each of us." (7,12,187)

Part 8 : Dreaming

"To venture into the world of warriors is not like learning to drive a car. To drive a
car, you need manuals and instructions. To dream, you need to intend it."
(10,5,119)

"The trick in learning to set up dreaming is obviously not just to look at things but
to sustain the sight of them. Dreaming is real when one has succeeded in bringing
everything into focus. Then there is no difference between what you do when you
sleep and what you do when you are not sleeping." (3,10,127)

"I'm going to remind you of all the techniques you must practice. First you must
focus your gaze on your hands as the starting point. Then shift your gaze to other
items and look at them in brief glances. Focus your gaze on as many things as you
can. Remember that if you only glance briefly the images do not shift. Then go
back to your hands. Every time you look at your hands you renew the power
needed for dreaming, so in the beginning don't look at too many things. Four
items will suffice every time. Later on, you may enlarge the scope until you can
cover all you want, but as soon as the images begin to shift and you feel you are
losing control go back to your hands. When you feel you can gaze at things
indefinitely you will be ready for a new technique. The same way you have
learned to look at your hands you can will yourself to move, to go places. First
you have to establish a place you want to go to. Pick a well-known spot - perhaps
your school, or a park, or a friend's house - then, will yourself to go there. This

technique is very difficult. You must perform two tasks: You must will yourself
to go to the specific locale; and then, when you have mastered that technique, you
have to learn to control the exact time of your traveling." (3,11,142-143)

"The sorcerer's explanation of how to select a topic for dreaming is that a warrior
chooses a topic by deliberately holding an image in his mind while he shuts off his
internal dialogue. In other words, if he is capable of not talking to himself for a
moment and then holds the image or the thought of what he wants in dreaming,
even if only for an instant, then the desired topic will come to him." (4,1,20)

"In order to help yourself you should pick a specific object that belongs to the place
that you want to go and focus your attention on it. On this hilltop here, for
instance, you now have a specific bush that you must observe until it has a place
in your memory. You can come back here while dreaming simply by recalling
that bush, or by recalling this rock where we are sitting, or by recalling any other
thing here. It is easier to travel in dreaming when you can focus on a place of
power, such as this one. But if you don't want to come here you may use any other
place. Perhaps the school where you go is a place of power for you. Use it. Focus
your attention on any object there and then find it in dreaming. From the specific
object you recall, you must go back to your hands and then to another object and
so on." (3,13,186-187)

The active element in training the dreaming attention is persistence. The mind and
all its rational defenses cannot cope with persistence. Sooner or later, the mind's
barriers fall, under its impact, and the dreaming attention blooms. (9,3,36)

There is no point in emphasizing the trials [a beginners attempts at dreaming]. But
if a dreamer has the same vision three times, he has to pay extraordinary attention
to it; otherwise, a neophyte's attempts were merely a stepping stone to building
the dreaming attention. (6,3,55)

"Ordinary dreams get very vivid as soon as you begin to set up dreaming. That
vividness and clarity is a formidable barrier..." (3,11,141)

The dangers of setting up dreaming: Don Juan said that the early stages of the
preparatory facet, which he called "setting up dreaming,'''' consisted of a deadly
game that one's mind played with itself, and that some part of oneself was going
to do everything it could to prevent the fulfillment of the task. That could include
plunging the warrior into a loss of meaning, melancholy, or even a suicidal
depression. (4,1,19)

Dreaming is dangerous. "Dreaming has to be a very sober affair. No false movement
can be afforded. Dreaming is a process of awakening, of gaining control. Our
dreaming attention must be systematically exercised, for it is the door to the
second attention." (9,3,28)

Improving dreaming: "You must wear a headband to sleep. Getting a headband is a
tricky maneuver. I cannot give you one, because you yourself must make it from
scratch. But you cannot make one until you have had a vision of it in dreaming.
See what I mean? The headband has to be made according to the specific vision.
And it must have a strip across it that fits tightly on top of the head. Or it may
very well be like a tight cap. Dreaming is easier when one wears a power object on
top of the head. You could wear your hat or put on a cowl, like a friar, and go to

sleep, but those items would only cause intense dreams, not dreaming." The vision
of the headband does not have to occur only in dreaming but could happen in
states of wakefulness and as a result any far-fetched and totally unrelated event,
such as watching the flight of birds, the movement of water, the clouds, and so on.
(3,12,163-164)

Don Juan's Recommendations For Dreaming (6,7, 140,142)

1. The best way for men to enter into dreaming is to concentrate on the area just
at the tip of the sternum, at the top of the belly. The attention needed for
dreaming stems from that area. The energy needed in order to move and seek
in dreaming stems from an area an inch or two below the belly button. That
energy is called will. In a woman both the attention and the energy needed for
dreaming originate from the womb.

2. Late night or early morning hours are by far the best time to do dreaming, when
the fixation of the first attention of those around us is dormant.

3. The best position for women to do dreaming is to sit with the legs crossed and
let the body fall forward.

4. The best position for men to do dreaming is to sit on a soft, thin mat [woven
from natural fibers] with the soles of the feet placed together, thighs touching
the mat. Let the trunk of the body bend forward until the forehead rests on the
feet.

Zuleica's Recommendations For Dreaming (6,13,251)

1. It is best to do it in total darkness while lying down or upon a narrow bed, or
better yet, while sitting in a coffin-like crib, if indoors.

2. Outdoors dreaming should be done in the protection of a cave, in the sandy
areas of water holes, or sitting against a rock in the mountains, never on the
flat floor of a valley or next to rivers, lakes or the sea, because flat areas are
antithetical to the second attention.

"You will find out for yourself that the true goal of dreaming is to perfect the
energy body." (9,3,42)

Once dreamers are able to sustain the sight of any item in their dreams, they also
reach the energy body. "It's the counterpart of the physical body, a ghost-like
configuration made of pure energy. The difference is that the energy body has
only appearance but no mass. Since it's pure energy, it can perform acts that are
beyond the possibilities of the physical body. And dreaming is the art of tempering
the energy body, of making it supple and coherent by gradually exercising it.
Since energy is its sphere, it is no problem for the energy body to use currents of
energy that exist in the universe to propel itself. All it has to do is isolate them,
and off it goes with them." (9,2,31-32)

"Dreams are, if not a door, a hatch into other worlds. As such, dreams are a
two-way street. Our awareness goes through that hatch into other realms, and
those other realms send scouts into our dreams. They are bursts of foreign energy
that come into our dreams, and we interpret them as items familiar or unfamiliar
to us. Warriors are aware of those currents of foreign energy. They notice them
and strive to isolate them from the normal items of their dreams. If we follow

them to their source, they serve as guides into areas of such mystery that warriors
shiver at the mere mention of such a possibility." (9,2,29-30)

"Scouts are more numerous when our dreams are average, normal ones. The
dreams of dreamers are strangely free from scouts. When they appear, they are
identifiable by the strangeness and incongruity surrounding them. Their presence
doesn't make any sense. They come in search of potential awareness. They have
consciousness and purpose, although it is incomprehensible to our minds...
Remember, the realm of the inorganic beings was the old sorcerers field. To get
there, they tenaciously fixed their dreaming attention on the items of their dreams.
In that fashion, they were able to isolate the scouts. And when they had the scouts
in focus, they shouted their intent to follow them. The instant the old sorcerers
voiced that intent, off they went, pulled by that foreign energy." (9,5,84-87)

"Unless you know exactly what you are doing and what you want out of alien
energy, you have to be content with a brief glance. Anything beyond a brief
glance is as dangerous and as stupid as petting a rattlesnake. Scouts are always
very aggressive and extremely daring. They have to be that way in order to
prevail in their explorations. Sustaining our dreaming attention on them is
tantamount to soliciting their awareness to focus on us. Once they focus their
attention on us, we are compelled to go with them. And that, of course, is the
danger. We may end up in worlds beyond our energetic possibilities." There
are many types of scouts. The first two types are the easiest to spot. Their
disguises in our dreams are so outlandish that they immediately attract our
dreaming attention. The scouts of the third type are the most dangerous, in terms
of aggressiveness and power, and because they hide behind subtle disguises.
"A formidable surprise was in store for me, in my dreaming, when I focused my
gaze on the dream image of my mother. After I voiced my intent to see, she turned
into a ferocious, frightening bubble of sizzling energy. A rule of thumb for
dreamers is to assume that the third type of scout is present whenever they feel
perturbed by their parents or friends in a dream. Sound advice is to avoid those
dream images. They are sheer poison." (9,9,177-179)

Inorganic beings: Life and consciousness, being exclusively a matter of energy, are
not solely the property of organisms. Warriors have seen that there are two types
of conscious beings roaming the earth, the organic and the inorganic, and that in
comparing one with the other, they have seen that both are luminous masses
crossed from every imaginable angle by millions of the universe's energy
filaments. They are different from each other in their shape and in their degree of
brightness. Inorganic beings are long and candle-like but opaque, whereas
organic beings are round and by far the brighter. Another noteworthy difference
is that the life and consciousness of organic beings is short-lived, because they are
made to hurry, whereas the life of inorganic beings is infinitely longer and their
consciousness infinitely more calm and deeper. "Warriors find no problem
interacting with them. Inorganic beings possess the crucial element for
interaction, consciousness. ... by the act of dreaming, warriors compel those beings
to interact with them. Dreaming is sustaining the position where the assemblage
point has shifted in dreams. This act creates a distinctive energy charge, which

attracts their attention. It's like bait to a fish; they'll go for it. Warriors ... set
bait for those beings and compel them to appear. With inorganic beings, the
secret is not to fear them. And this must be done from the beginning. Through
the channel of fear, they can follow us to the daily world, with disastrous results
for us. Inorganic beings can be worse than a pest. Through fear they can easily
drive us raving mad. The intent one has to send out to them has to be of power
and abandon. In that intent one must encode the message 'I don't fear you. Come
to see me. If you do, I'll welcome you. If you don't want to come, I'll miss you.'
With a message like this, they'll get so curious that they'll come for sure. The
thing you must bear in mind from now on is that inorganic beings with their
superb consciousness exert a tremendous pull over dreamers and can easily
transport them into worlds beyond description." (9,3,45-49)

On visiting the inorganic beings' world: "The challenge is for each of us to take
only what is needed from that world, nothing more. To know what's needed is
the virtuosity of warriors, but to take only what is needed is their highest
accomplishment. To fail to understand this simple rule is the surest way of
plummeting into a pitfall. The universe of the inorganic beings is always ready to
strike. But so is our own universe. That's why you have to go into their realm
exactly as if you were venturing into a war zone." (9,6,109-110)

" ... dreamers reach a threshold of energy and begin to see things or hear voices.
Not really plural voices, but a singular voice. Warriors call it the voice of the
dreaming emissary. [The dreaming emissary is] alien energy that has conciseness.
Alien energy that purports to aid dreamers by telling them things. The problem
with the dreaming emissary is that it can tell only what the warriors already know
or should know, were they worth their salt. ... the dreaming emissary is a force
that comes from the realm of the inorganic beings. This is the reason dreamers
always encounter it. Everyone hears the emissary, very few see it or feel it."
(9,4,64,66)

"In the final analysis, my aversion to the old sorcerers activities is very personal. As
a nagual, I detest what they did. They cowardly sought refuge in the inorganic
beings' world. They argued that in a predatorial universe, poised to rip us apart,
the only possible haven for us is in that realm. Since the inorganic beings can't lie,
the sales pitch of the dreaming emissary is all true. That world can give us shelter
and prolong our awareness for nearly an eternity. The energy necessary to move
the assemblage points of warriors comes from the realm of inorganic beings. This
is the truth, and the legacy of the old sorcerers to us. They have us pinned down
to this day. This is the reason I don't like them. I resent having to dip into one
source alone. Personally, I refuse to do it. And I have tried to steer you away from
it. We can't have dealings with them, and yet we can't stay away from them. My
solution has been to take their energy but not give in to their influence. This is
known as the ultimate stalking. It is done by sustaining the unbending intent of
freedom, even though no warrior knows what freedom really is. To start
dreaming warriors need to redefine their premises and save their energy, but that
redefining is valid only to have the energy to set up dreaming. To fly into other
realms, to see energy, to forge the energy body, et cetera, is another matter. For

those maneuvers, warriors needs loads of dark, alien energy. [They take it from
the inorganic beings' world] by the mere act of going to that world. All the
warriors of our line have to do this." (9,9,180-182)

"In matters of the inorganic beings I am nearly a novice. I refused that part of the
warrior's knowledge on the ground that it is too cumbersome and capricious. I
don't want to be at the mercy of any entity, organic or inorganic." (9,3,55)

The whole realm of inorganic beings is poised to teach. Perhaps because inorganic
beings have a deeper consciousness than ours, they feel compelled to take us
under their wings. "I didn't see any point in becoming their pupil. Their price is
too high. [Castaneda asks, "What is their price?"] Our lives, our energy, our
devotion to them. In other words, our freedom." (9,4,66)

"[The decision to live with the inorganic beings] is a superpersonal and final
decision, a final decision made the instant you voice your desire to live in that
world. In order to get you to voice that desire, the inorganic beings are going to
cater to your most secret wishes. [Castaneda says, "This is really diabolical,
don Juan."] You can say that again. But not just because of what you are
thinking. For you, the diabolical part is the temptation to give in, especially
when such great rewards are at stake. For me, the diabolical nature of the
inorganic beings' realm is that it might very well be the only sanctuary
dreamers have in a hostile universe. Not for me. I don't need props or railings.
I know what I am. I am alone in a hostile universe, and I have learned to say,
So be it!" (9,5,96)

" ... if you choose to stay [in the inorganic beings' world], your decision is final.
You'll stay there forever." (9,5,96-97)

The Dreaming Emissary's Recommendations For Dreaming (9,5,93-95)
(The Inorganic Being's Recommendations For Dreaming)
[WARNING: THE DREAMING EMISSARY IS THE VOICE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. IT ATTEMPTS TO PERSUADE DREAMERS TO
GIVE UP THEIR FREEDOM AND BECOME THE SLAVE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. ALL THE KNOWLEDGE IT IMPARTS IS MEANT
TO FURTHER THIS PURPOSE IN WAYS THAT MAY BE DECEPTIVE.
ITS RECOMMENDATIONS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED ONLY WITH THE
UTMOST CAUTION.]

1. "For perfect dreaming, the first thing you have to do is shut off the internal
dialogue. For best results in shutting it off, put between your fingers some two- or
three-inch-long quartz crystals or a couple of smooth, thin river pebbles. Bend your
fingers slightly, and press the crystals or pebbles with them." Metal pins, if they are
the size and width of one's fingers, are equally effective. The procedure consists of
pressing at least three thin items between the fingers of each hand and creating, an
almost painful pressure in the hands. The pressure has the strange property of
shutting off the internal dialogue. The emissary's expressed preference is for quartz
crystals; it says that they give the best results, although with practice anything is
suitable. "Falling asleep at a moment of total silence guarantees a perfect entrance
into dreaming and it also guarantees the enhancing of one's dreaming attention.

[WARNING: THE DREAMING EMISSARY IS THE VOICE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. IT ATTEMPTS TO PERSUADE DREAMERS TO
GIVE UP THEIR FREEDOM AND BECOME THE SLAVE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. ALL THE KNOWLEDGE IT IMPARTS IS MEANT
TO FURTHER THIS PURPOSE IN WAYS THAT MAY BE DECEPTIVE.
ITS RECOMMENDATIONS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED ONLY WITH THE
UTMOST CAUTION]

2. "Dreamers should wear a gold ring, preferably fitted a bit tight." The ring serves
as a bridge for surfacing from dreaming back into the daily world or for sinking
from our daily awareness into the inorganic being's realm. "The contact of the
fingers on the ring lays the bridge down. If a dreamer comes into my world wearing
a ring, that ring attracts the energy of my world and keeps it; and when it's needed,
that energy transports the dreamer back to this [the inorganic being's] world, by the
ring releasing it into the dreamer's fingers. The pressure of that ring around a
finger serves equally well to a dreamer's return to his world. It gives him a constant,
familiar sense on his finger."

[WARNING: THE DREAMING EMISSARY IS THE VOICE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. IT ATTEMPTS TO PERSUADE DREAMERS TO
GIVE UP THEIR FREEDOM AND BECOME THE SLAVE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. ALL THE KNOWLEDGE IT IMPARTS IS MEANT
TO FURTHER THIS PURPOSE IN WAYS THAT MAY BE DECEPTIVE.
ITS RECOMMENDATIONS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED ONLY WITH THE
UTMOST CAUTION.]

3. Our skin is the perfect organ for transposing energy waves from the mode of the
daily world to the mode of the inorganic beings and vice versa. It is recommended
that the skin should be kept cool and free from pigments or oils. It is also
recommended that dreamers wear a tight belt or headband or necklace to create a
pressure point that serves as a skin center of energy exchange. The skin
automatically screens energy, and that what we need to do to make the skin not only
screen but exchange energy from one mode to the other is to express our intent out
loud, in dreaming.

[WARNING: THE DREAMING EMISSARY IS THE VOICE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. IT ATTEMPTS TO PERSUADE DREAMERS TO
GIVE UP THEIR FREEDOM AND BECOME THE SLAVE OF THE
INORGANIC BEINGS. ALL THE KNOWLEDGE IT IMPARTS IS MEANT
TO FURTHER THIS PURPOSE IN WAYS THAT MAY BE DECEPTIVE.
ITS RECOMMENDATIONS SHOULD BE FOLLOWED ONLY WITH THE
UTMOST CAUTION.]

4. In order to ensure the keenness and accuracy of our dreaming attention, we must
bring it from behind the roof of the mouth, where an enormous reservoir of
attention is located in all human beings. Practice and learn the discipline and
control necessary to press the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth while
dreaming. This task is as difficult and consuming as finding one's hands in a dream.
But, once it is accomplished, this task gives the most astounding results in terms of
controlling the dreaming attention.

The Death Defier's (The Tenant's) Dreaming Recommendations
The Twin Positions (9,12,229-230,232)
"Start your dreaming by lying on your right side, with your knees a bit bent. The
discipline is to maintain that position and fall asleep in it. In dreaming, then, the
exercise is to dream that you lie down in exactly the same position and fall asleep
again. It makes the assemblage point stay put, and I mean really stay put, in
whatever position it is at the instant of that second falling asleep. [The results are]
Total perception. I am sure that your teachers have already told you that my gifts
are gifts of total perception." [Total perception means to be able to hold that
position of the assemblage point for as long as desired and to function in that
form, in that world, in that dreaming, with the same assurance and command as
one has in the daily world.]

The Twin Positions Pt. 2
The four variations of the exercise are to fall asleep lying on the right side, the
left, the back, and the stomach. Then in dreaming the exercise is to dream of falling
asleep a second time in the same position as the dreaming had been started. For
instance, if you were dreaming of your hometown and your dream had started when
you laid down on your right side, you could very easily stay in the town of your
dream if you would lie down on your right side, in the dream, and dream that you
had fallen asleep. The second dream not only would necessarily be a dream of your
hometown, but would be the most concrete dream one can imagine.

The tenant came from a line of sorcerers who knew how to move about in the second
attention by projecting their intent. They practiced the art of projecting their
thoughts in dreaming in order to accomplish the truthful reproduction of any object
or structure or landmark or scenery of their choice. They used to start by gazing at
a simple object and memorizing every detail of it. They would then close their eyes
and visualize the object and correct their visualization against the true object until
they could see it, in its completeness, with their eyes shut. The next thing in their
developing scheme was to dream with the object and create in the dream, from the
point of view of their own perception, a total materialization of the object. This act
was called the first step to total perception. From a simple object, those sorcerers
went on to take more and more complex items. Their final aim was for all of them to
visualize a total world, then dream that world and thus re-create a totally veritable
realm where they could exist. "When any of the sorcerers of my line were able to do
that, they could easily pull anyone into their intent, into their dream. Whole
populations disappeared dreaming like that. They visualized and then re-created in
dreaming the same scenery." (9,12,231-232)

Seeing in dreaming: To see in dreaming not only does one have to intend seeing, but
one also has to put their intent into loud words. There are other means to
accomplish the same result, but voicing one's intent is the simplest and most
direct way. (9,9,166)

The Death Defier's Instructions For Seeing In Dreaming (9, 12,234)

"All we have to do, in order to see in our dreams, is to point with the little finger at

the item we want to see. Of course, to yell ... works too." [Castaneda's practice was
to yell, "I want to see energy!" It works.]

...warriors should never attempt seeing unless they are aided by dreaming. ...to move
the assemblage point away from its natural setting and to keep it fixed at a new
location is to be asleep; with practice, seers learn to be asleep and yet behave as if
nothing is happening to them. (7,14,219)

"... unless we see in dreaming, we can't tell a real, energy generating thing [in a
real world] from a phantom projection [in an ordinary dream]. (9,9,170)

"Dreamers have a rule of thumb. If their energy body is complete, they see energy
every time they gaze at an item in the daily world. In dreams, if they see the
energy of an item, they know they are dealing with a real world, no matter how
distorted that world may appear to their dreaming attention. If they can't see the
energy of an item, they are in and ordinary dream and not in a real world."
(9,8, 164)

"The old sorcerers preferred the shifts of the assemblage point, so they were always
on more or less known, predictable ground. We [the new seers] prefer the
movements of the assemblage point. The old sorcerers were after the human
unknown. We are after the nonhuman unknown, freedom from being human.
Inconceivable worlds that are outside the band of man but that we can still
perceive. What I am talking about are worlds, like the one where we live; total
worlds with endless realms. Entering into those worlds is the type of dreaming
only warriors of today do. The old sorcerers stayed away from it, because it
requires a great deal of detachment and no self-importance whatsoever. A
price they couldn't afford to pay." (9,4,79-81)

Steps To Develop The Dreaming Attention (5,5,269-270)

1. Finding one's hands in a dream.

2. Finding objects, specific features, such as streets, buildings etc.

3. Dreaming about specific places at specific times of day.

4. Dreaming of looking at oneself sleeping and then turning around and engaging
oneself in activities as if in the world of everyday life.

5. The result of these steps is the other self, the double, an identical being to oneself,
but made in dreaming.

"The first part of the dreaming lesson in question is that maleness and femaleness
are not final states but are the result of a specific act of positioning the assemblage
point. And this act is, naturally, a matter of volition and training." (9,11,210)

"The nagual Elias had great respect for sexual energy. He believed it has been
given to us so we can use it in dreaming. He believed dreaming had fallen into
disuse because it can upset the precarious mental balance of susceptible people.
I've taught you dreaming the same way he taught me. He taught me that while we
dream the assemblage point moves very gently and naturally. Mental balance is
nothing but the fixing of the assemblage point on one spot we're accustomed to. If
dreams make that point move, and dreaming is used to control that natural
movement, and sexual energy is needed for dreaming, the result is sometimes
disastrous when sexual energy is dissipated in sex instead of dreaming. Then

dreamers move their assemblage points erratically and lose their minds. You are
a dreamer. If you're not careful with your sexual energy, you might as well get
used to the idea of erratic shifts of your assemblage point. Our sexual energy is
what governs dreaming. The nagual Elias taught me - and I taught you - that you
either make love with your sexual energy or you dream with it. There is no other
way." (8,2,55-56)

"Recapitulating and dreaming go hand in hand. As we regurgitate our lives, we
get more and more airborne. The recapitulation sets free energy imprisoned
within us, and without this liberated energy dreaming is not possible." (9,8,148)

"The recapitulation of our lives never ends, no matter how well we've done it once.
The reason average people lack volition in their dreams is that they have never
recapitulated and their lives are filled to capacity with heavily loaded emotions
like memories, hopes, fears, et cetera, et cetera. Warriors, in contrast, are
relatively free from heavy, binding, emotions, because of their recapitulation."
(9,8,147-148)

Part 9 : The Recapitulation

"To recount events is magical for warriors. It isn't just telling stories. It is seeing
the underlying fabric of events. This is the reason recounting is so important and
vast." (12,11,158)

"Recollecting is not the same as remembering. Remembering is dictated by the
day-to-day type of thinking, while recollecting is dictated by the movement of
the assemblage point. A recapitulation of their lives, which warriors do, is the
key to moving their assemblage points. Warriors start their recapitulation by
thinking, by remembering the most important events of their lives. From merely
thinking about them they move on to actually being at the sight of the event.
When they can do that - be at the site of the event - they have successfully
shifted their assemblage point to the precise spot it was when the event took
place. Bringing back the total event by means of shifting the assemblage point
is known as warriors' recollection. Our assemblage points are constantly
shifting, imperceptible shifts. Warriors believe that in order to make their
assemblage points shift to precise spots we must engage intent. Since there is no
way of knowing what intent is, warriors let their eyes beckon it." (8,4,145)

"Warriors believe that as we recapitulate our lives, all the debris comes to the
surface. We realize our inconsistencies, our repetitions, but something in us puts
up a tremendous resistance to recapitulating. Warriors say that the road is free
only after a gigantic upheaval, after the appearance on our screen of the memory
of an event that shakes our foundations with its terrifying clarity of detail. It's the
event that drags us to the actual moment that we lived it. Warriors call that event
the usher, because from then on every event we touch on is relived, not merely
remembered." (12,11,148-149)

Florinda's Explanation of Recapitulation (6,14,289-292)
She [Florinda] explained that a recapitulation is the forte of stalkers as the

dreaming body is the forte of dreamers. It consisted of recollecting one's life down to
the most insignificant detail. Thus her benefactor [The Nagual Julian] had given her
that crate [details below] as a tool and a symbol. It was a tool that would permit her
to learn concentration, for she would have to sit there for years, until all her life had
passed in front of her eyes. And it was a symbol of the narrow boundaries of our
person. Her benefactor told her that whenever she had finished her recapitulation,
she would break the crate to symbolize that she no longer abided by the limitations
of her person.

She said that stalkers use crates or earth coffins in order to seal themselves in
while they are reliving, more than merely recollecting, every moment of their lives.
The reason why stalkers must recapitulate their lives in such a thorough manner is
that the Eagle's gift to man includes its willingness to accept a surrogate instead of
genuine awareness, if such a surrogate be a perfect replica. Florida explained that
since awareness is the Eagle's food, the Eagle can be satisfied with a perfect
recapitulation in place of consciousness.

Florinda gave me then the fundamentals of recapitulating. She said that the first
stage is a brief recounting of all the incidents in our lives that in an obvious manner
stand out for examination.

The second stage is a more detailed recollection, which starts systematically at a
point that could be the moment prior to the stalker sitting in the crate, and
theoretically could extend to the moment of birth.

She assured me that a perfect recapitulation could change a warrior as much, if
not more, than the total control of the dreaming body. In this respect, dreaming and
stalking led to the same end, the entering into the third attention. It was important
for a warrior, however, to know and practice both. She said that for women it took
different configurations in the luminous body to master one or the other. Men, on
the other hand, could do both with a degree of ease, yet they could never get to the
degree of proficiency that the women attained in each art.

Florinda explained that the key element in recapitulating was breathing. Breath
for her was magical, because it was a life-giving function. She said that recollecting
was easy if one could reduce the area of stimulation around the body. This was the
reason for the crate; then breathing would foster deeper and deeper memories. The
function of this breathing is to restore energy. Florinda claimed that the luminous
body is constantly creating cobweblike filaments, which are projected out of the
luminous mass, propelled by emotions of any sort. Therefore, every situation of
interaction, or every situation where feelings are involved, is potentially draining to
the luminous body. By breathing from right to left while remembering a feeling,
stalkers, through the magic of breathing, pick up the filaments they left behind. The
next immediate breath is from left to right and it is an exhalation. With it stalkers
eject filaments left in them by other luminous bodies involved in the event being
recollected.

Unless stalkers have recapitulated in order to retrieve the filaments they have left
in the world, and particularly in order to reject those that others have left in them,
there is no possibility of handling controlled folly, because those foreign filaments
are the basis for one's limitless capacity for self-importance. In order to practice

controlled folly, since it is not a way to fool or chastise people or to feel superior to
them, one has to be capable of laughing at oneself. Florinda said that one of the
results of a detailed recapitulation is genuine laughter upon coming face to face with
the boring repetition of one's self-esteem, which is at the core of all human
interaction.

Florinda's Recapitulation Technique (6,14,289-291)
In conditions of absolute quiet and solitude:

The procedure starts with an initial breath. Stalkers begin with their chin on the
right shoulder and slowly inhale as they move their head over a 180 degree arc. The
breath terminates on the left shoulder. Once the inhalation ends, the head goes back
to a relaxed position. They exhale looking straight ahead.

The stalker then takes the event at the top of the list and remains with it until all
the feelings expended in it have been recounted. As stalkers remember the feelings
they invested in whatever it is that they are remembering, they inhale slowly,
moving their heads from the right shoulder to the left. The next immediate breath is
from left right and it is an exhalation.

"The way warriors perform the recapitulation is very formal. It consists of writing
a list of all the people they have met, from the present to the very beginning of
their lives. Once they have that list, they take the first person on it and recollect
everything they can about that person, and I mean everything, every detail. It's
better to recapitulate from the present to the past, because the memories of the
present are fresh, and in this manner, the recollection ability is honed. What
practitioners do is to recollect and breathe." The inhalations and exhalations
should be natural; if they are too rapid, one will enter into something called
tiring breaths: breaths that required slower breathing afterward in order to calm
down the muscles. (12,10,143-144)

The two rounds of recapitulation: The first is called formality and rigidity, and the
second fluidity. The second round, fluidity, will "... be a mess if you let your
pettiness choose the events you are going to recapitulate. Instead, let the spirit
decide. Be silent [shut off the internal dialogue], and then get to the event the
spirit points out." (9,8,150)

The recapitulation list is augmented by the memory of impersonal events in which

no people are involved, but which have to be examined because they are somehow

related to the person being recapitulated. (10,5,108)

The Construction of Florinda's Recapitulation Crate (6,14,287-288)
Her benefactor made her sit on a low chair. Her benefactor's assistants
constructed a wooden crate around her. When they were finished, Florinda was
encased snugly inside the crate, which had a lattice top to allow for ventilation. One
of its sides was hinged in order to serve as a door. Her benefactor then assigned her
a room to herself and had his assistants put the crate inside the room. Her
benefactor, after directing her to write down a list of the events to be relived, put
her inside the crate daily for at least six hours.

"The recapitulation of our lives never ends, no matter how well we've done it once."
(9,8,147-148)

Part 10 : The Magical Passes

There is an inherent amount of energy existing in each one of us, an amount which
is not subject to the onslaughts of outside forces for augmenting it or decreasing it.
This quantity of energy is sufficient to accomplish something that warriors deem to
be the obsession of everyone on Earth: breaking the parameters of normal
perception. Our incapacity to break those parameters is induced by our culture and
social milieu. Our culture and social milieu have deployed every bit of our inherent
energy in fulfilling established behavioral patterns which don't allow us to break
those parameters of normal perception.

"Breaking those parameters is the unavoidable issue of mankind. Breaking them
means the entrance into unthinkable worlds of a pragmatic value in no way
different from the value of our world of everyday life. Regardless of whether or not
we accept this premise, we are obsessed with breaking those parameters, and we fail
miserably at it, hence the profusion of drugs and stimulants and religious rituals
and ceremonies among modern man. Our failure to fulfill our subliminal wish is due
to the fact that we tackle it in a helter-skelter way. Our tools are too crude. They are
equivalent to trying to bring down a wall by ramming it with the head. Man never
considers this breakage in terms of energy. For warriors, success is determined only
by the accessibility or inaccessibility of energy. Since it is impossible to augment our
inherent energy, the only avenue open for [warriors is] the redeployment of that
energy. For them, this redeployment begins with the magical passes, and the way
they affect the physical body.

"You need a pliable body, if you want physical prowess and levelheadedness.
These are the two most important issues in the lives of warriors, because they bring
forth sobriety and pragmatism: the only indispensable requisites for entering into
other realms of perception. To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown
necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness. In order to establish a
balance between audacity and recklessness, a warrior has to be extremely sober,
cautious, skillful, and in superb physical condition. Just to conceive facing the
unknown - much less enter into it - requires guts of steel, and a body that would be
capable of holding those guts. What would be the point of being gutsy if you didn't
have mental alertness, physical prowess, and adequate muscles?"
(10,Introduction,2-4)

"... every part of the human body is engaged, in one way or another, in turning this
vibratory flow [of energy in the universe], this current of vibration, into some
form of sensory input." (10, Introduction^)

"Nobody invented them [the magical passes]. To think that they were invented
implies instantly the intervention of the mind, and this is not the case when it
comes to those magical passes. They were, rather, discovered by the old sorcerers.
I was told that it all began with the extraordinary sensation of well-being that
they experienced when they were in states of heightened awareness. They felt

such tremendous, enthralling vigor that they struggled to repeat it in their hours
of vigil. At first, they believed that it was a mood of well-being that heightened
awareness created in general. Soon, they found out that not all the states of
heightened awareness which they entered produced in them the same sensation of
well-being. A more careful scrutiny revealed to them that whenever that
sensation of well-being occurred, they had always been engaged in some
specific kind of bodily movement." (10,1,10-11)

"The magic of the movements is a subtle change that the practitioners experience
on executing them. It is an ephemeral quality that the movement brings to their
physical and mental states, a kind of shine, a light in the eyes. This subtle change
is a touch of the spirit. It is as if the practitioners, through the movements,
reestablish an unused link with the life force that sustains them. Because of this
quality, because of this magic, the passes must be practiced not as exercises, but
as a way of beckoning power." (10,1,12)

"The natural tendency of human beings is to push energy away from the centers of
vitality by worrying, by succumbing to the stress of everyday life. [This energy]
gathers on the periphery of the luminous ball, sometimes to the point of making a
thick, barklike deposit. The magical passes agitate the energy that has been
accumulated in the luminous ball and return it to the physical body itself."
(10,1,15)

"Remember this: It is not just a slogan for warriors to say that they do not honor
agreements in which they did not participate. To be plagued by old age is one
such agreement." (10,1,17)

The execution of the magical passes doesn't necessarily require a particular space
or prearranged time. However, the movements should be done away from sharp
currents of air. Don Juan dreaded currents of air on a perspiring body. He firmly
believed that not every current of air was caused by the rising or lowering of
temperature in the atmosphere and that some currents of air possessed a specific
type of awareness, particularly deleterious because human beings cannot ordinarily
detect them, and become exposed to them indiscriminately. Also, the practice of the
magical passes should not be mixed with elements with which we are already
thoroughly familiar, such as conversation, music, or the sound of a radio or TV
newsman reporting the news, no matter how muffled the sound might be.
(10,2,25)

Part 11 : The Third Attention

The First, Second And Third Attentions
The First Attention: The awareness of our daily world, the fixation of the

assemblage point on its habitual position. (9,1,16)
The Second Attention: The fixing of the assemblage point on new positions within
and without the luminous ball, resulting in the awareness of other worlds and
perceptions that might be either real or dream-like. (9,1,16-17)

The Third Attention: The sudden breakage of the boundaries of our luminous
energy shape in order to merge the energy within with the energy surrounding
us. (7,7,120) [The resulting individual awareness is indescribable but will possibly
last as long as the earth itself retains life.(12,13,192)]

Seers maintain that awareness always comes from outside ourselves, that the real
mystery is not inside us. Since by nature the [Eagle's] emanations at large are
made to fixate [the Eagle's emanations] inside the cocoon, the trick of awareness
is to let the fixating emanations merge with what is inside us. Seers believe that if
we let that happen we become what we really are - fluid, forever in motion,
eternal. (7,4,68)

"Seers who deliberately attain total awareness are a sight to behold. That is the
moment when they burn from within. The fire from within consumes them.
And in full awareness they fuse themselves to the emanations at large, and
glide into eternity." (7,7,120)

It is very easy for the dreaming body to gaze at the Eagle's emanations

uninterruptedly for long periods of time, but it is also very easy in the end for the
dreaming body to be totally consumed by them. Seers who gazed at the Eagle's
emanations without their dreaming bodies died, and those who gazed at them
with their dreaming bodies burned with the fire from within. (7,11,183)

"The rolling force is the means through which the Eagle distributes life and
awareness for safekeeping. But it is also the force that, let's say, collects the rent.
It makes all living beings die." Seers describe it as an eternal line of iridescent
rings, or balls of fire, that roll onto living beings ceaselessly. Luminous organic
beings meet the rolling force head on, until the day when the force proves to be
too much for them and the creatures finally collapse. The old seers were
mesmerized by seeing how the tumbler then tumbles them into the Eagle's beak
to be devoured. That was the reason they called it the tumbler. "I've talked many
times about a gap that man has below his navel. It's not really below the navel
itself, but in the cocoon, at the height of the navel. The gap is more like a dent, a
natural flaw in the otherwise smooth cocoon. It is there where the tumbler hits us
ceaselessly and where the cocoon cracks. Death is the rolling force. When it finds
weakness in the gap of a luminous being it automatically cracks it open and
makes it collapse." By becoming familiar with the rolling force through the
mastery of intent, the new seers, at a given moment, open their cocoons and the
force floods them... The final result is their total and instantaneous disintegration.
[They burn with the fire from within and enter the third attention.] At one point
the old seers had concluded that there were, in effect, two different aspects of the
same force. The tumbling aspect relates exclusively to destruction and death. The
circular aspect, on the other hand, is what maintains life and awareness,
fulfillment and purpose. "The circular force comes to us just before the tumbling
force; they are so close to each other that they seem the same. What the new seers
discovered is that the balance of the two forces in every living being is a delicate
one. If at any given time an individual feels that the tumbling force strikes harder
than the circular one, that means the balance is upset; the tumbling force strikes
harder and harder from then on, until it cracks the living being's gap and makes

it die." (7,14,223-228)

The new seers discovered that if the assemblage point is made to shift constantly to
the confines of the unknown, but is made to return to a position at the limit of the
known, then when it is suddenly released it moves like lightning across the entire
cocoon of man, aligning all the emanations inside the cocoon at once. "The new
seers burn with the force of alignment, with the force of will, which they have
turned into the force of intent through a life of impeccability." (7,Epilogue,295)

"For warriors, when the act of unification [entering the third attention] takes
place, there is no corpse. There is no decay. Their bodies in their entirety have
been turned into energy, energy possessing awareness... (12,13,192)

The Nagual Elias' Incantation (8,2,66)
The power of man is incalculable. Death exists only because we have intended it
since the moment of our birth. The intent of death can be suspended by making the
assemblage point change positions.

"Warriors say death is the only worthy opponent we have. Death is our challenger.
We are born to take that challenge, average men or warriors. Warriors know
about it; average men do not. Life is the process by means of which death
challenges us. Death is the active force. Life is the arena. And in that arena there
are only two contenders at any time: oneself and death. We are passive. Think
about it. If we move, it's only when we feel the pressure of death. Death sets the
pace for our actions and feelings and pushes us relentlessly until it breaks us and
wins the bout, or else we rise above all possibilities and defeat death. Warriors
defeat death and death acknowledges the defeat by letting warriors go free, never
to be challenged again. [Castaneda asks, "Does that mean warriors become
immortal?"] No. It doesn't mean that. Death stops challenging them, that's all. It
means that thought has taken a somersault into the inconceivable. A somersault
of thought into the inconceivable is the descent of the spirit; the act of breaking
our perceptual barriers. It is the moment when man's perception reaches its
limits." (8,4,131-133)

"This [the third attention] is in no way immortality. It is merely the entrance into an
evolutionary process, using the only medium for evolution that man has at his
disposal: awareness. The warriors of my lineage were convinced that man could
not evolve biologically any further; therefore, they considered man's awareness
to be the only medium for evolution. At the moment of leaving this world,
warriors are not annihilated by death, but are transformed into a specialized type
of inorganic being: a being that has awareness, but not an organism. To be
transformed into an inorganic being was evolution for them, and it meant that a
new, indescribable type of awareness was lent to them, an awareness that would
last for veritably millions of years, but which would also someday have to be
returned to the giver: the Eagle." (10,5,104)

"Freedom is the Eagle's gift to man. Unfortunately, very few men realize that
all we need, in order to accept such a magnificent gift, is to have sufficient
energy." (7,Epilogue,295)

"For infinity, the only worthwhile enterprise of a warrior is freedom. Any other
enterprise is fraudulent." (12,7,113)

The total goal of the warrior's way is the preparation for facing the definitive
journey. Through their discipline and resolve, warriors are capable of retaining
their individual awareness and purpose after leaving this world. For warriors,
the vague, idealistic state that modern man calls "life after death" is a concrete
region filled with practical affairs of a different order than the practical affairs
of daily life, yet bearing a similar functional practicality. To collect the
memorable events of their lives is, for warriors, the preparation for their entrance
into that concrete region which they call the active side of infinity.
(12,Introduction,2)

"Think about the wonder... Think about nothing else: The rest will come to
youofitself."(l,2,35)

"Man lives only to learn. And if he learns it is because that is the nature of his lot,
for good or bad."(l,3,45)

"To be a man of knowledge has no permanence. One is never a man of knowledge,
not really. Rather, one becomes a man of knowledge for a very brief instant, after
defeating the four natural enemies."(l,3,62)

Defeating The Four Natural Enemies (1,3,63-65)

Fear: "He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in
learning, and the next, and the next. He must be fully afraid, and yet he must
not stop."

Clarity: "He must defy his clarity and use it only to see, and wait patiently and
measure carefully before taking new steps; he must think, above all, that his
clarity is almost a mistake."

Power: "He has to defy it, deliberately. He has to come to realize the power he
has seemingly conquered is in reality never his. He must keep himself in line at
all times, handling carefully and faithfully all that he has learned. If he can see
that clarity and power, without his control over himself, are worse than mistakes,
he will reach a point where everything is held in check. He will know then when
and how to use his power."

Old Age: "If the man sloughs off his tiredness, and lives his fate through, he then
can be called a man of knowledge, if only for the brief moment when he succeeds
in fighting off his last, invincible enemy. That moment of clarity, power, and
knowledge is enough."

"That is all there is in reality - what you felt."(l,7,110)

"In fact, a warrior has only his will and his patience and with them he builds

anything he wants."(2,10,177)
"I'm convinced that under their [men of knowledge] direction, the populations of

entire cities went into other worlds and never came back." (7,1,18-19)

Silvio Manuel's Incantation For Warriors Feeling Unequal To Their Task (6,15,309)
I am already given to the power that rules my fate.

And I cling to nothing, so I will have nothing to defend.

I have no thoughts, so I will see.

I fear nothing, so I will remember myself.

Detached and at ease,

I will dart past the Eagle to be free.

"The degree of awareness of every individual sentient being depends on the degree
to which it is capable of letting the pressure of the emanations at large carry it."
(7,4,68-69)

"...nothing that we may have gained in the course of our lives can reveal to us the

designs of power." (4,2,176)
If one is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of
effort but with no stress or obsession. (4,1,20-21)

"...warriors have found out, the hard way, that intent comes to them only for
something that is abstract." (12,Introduction,10)

"I will not tire of repeating this: we know that we are waiting and we know what we
are waiting for. We are waiting for freedom!" (7,7,121)

" ... freedom cannot be an investment. Freedom is an adventure with no end, in
which we risk our lives and much more for a few moments of something beyond
words, beyond thoughts or feelings. To seek freedom is the only driving force
I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to
lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the
light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than
what it is, a mere candle." (9,4,81)

Part 12 : Hazards And Opportunities

"Only as a warrior can one withstand the path of knowledge. A warrior cannot
complain or regret anything. His life is an endless challenge, and challenges
cannot possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges." (4,4,108)

"I would say that the best of us always comes out when we are against the wall,
when we feel the sword dangling overhead. Personally, I wouldn't have it any
other way." (4,6,146)

"There is nothing wrong with being afraid. When you fear, you see things in a
different way."(l,2,33)

"One of the greatest forces in the lives of warriors is fear. It spurs them to learn."
(7,3,57)

"Fear is the first natural enemy a man must overcome on his path to knowledge.
Besides, you are curious. That evens up the score. And you will learn in spite
of yourself; that's the rule."(l,2,34)

"Solace, haven, fear, all of them are moods that you have learned without ever
questioning their value. As one can see, the black magicians have already engaged
all your allegiance. Our fellow men are the black magicians. And since you are
with them, you too are a black magician. Think for a moment. Can you deviate
from the path that they've lined up for you? No. Your thoughts and your actions

are fixed forever in their terms. That is slavery. I, on the other hand, brought you
freedom. Freedom is expensive, but the price is not impossible. So, fear your
captors, your masters. Don't waste your time and power fearing me." (4,1,28-29)

"Of course, there is a dark side to us. We kill wantonly, don't we? We burn
people in the name of God. We destroy ourselves; we obliterate life on this planet;
we destroy the earth. And then we dress in robes and the Lord speaks directly to
us. And what does the Lord tell us? He says that we should be good boys or he is
going to punish us. The Lord has been threatening us for centuries and it doesn't
make any difference. Not because we are evil, but because we are dumb. Man has
a dark side, yes, and it's called stupidity." (8,6,284)

"Cynicism doesn't allow us to make drastic changes in our understanding of the
world. It also forces us to feel that we are always right."(9,9,171)

Beauty is a demon that breeds and proliferates when admired. That demon is the
hardest to overcome. If one looks around to find those who are beautiful one
would find the most wretched beings imaginable. "They are wretched, you'd
better believe it. Try them. Be unwilling to go along with their idea that they are
beautiful, and because of it, important. You'll see what I mean."
(Florinda)(6,14,273-274)

A warrior is on permanent guard against the roughness of human behavior. A
warrior is magical and ruthless, a maverick with the most refined taste and
manners, whose worldly task is to sharpen, yet disguise, his cutting edges so that
no one will be able to suspect his ruthlessness. (8,4,127)

"We are perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity.
We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our
passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us.
We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus
we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge
in our lifetime." (4,3,100)

Only a small portion of the Eagle's emanations is within reach of human awareness,
and that small portion is further reduced, to a minute fraction, by the constraints
of our daily lives. That minute fraction of the Eagle's emanations is the known;
the small portion within possible reach of human awareness is the unknown, and
the incalculable rest is the unknowable. (7,3,55)

"In the face of the unknown, man is adventurous. It is a quality of the unknown to
give us a sense of hope and happiness. Man feels robust, exhilarated." But,
whenever what is taken to be the unknown turns out to be the unknowable the
results are disastrous. Warriors feel drained, confused. A terrible oppression
takes possession of them. Their bodies lose tone, their reasoning and sobriety
wander away aimlessly, for the unknowable has no energizing effects whatsoever.
It is not within human reach; therefore, it should not be intruded upon foolishly
or even prudently. Warriors realized that they had to be prepared to pay
exorbitant prices for the faintest contact with it. (7,3,46-47)

Our speech faculty is extremely flimsy and [temporary] attacks of muteness are
common among warriors who venture beyond the limits of normal perception.
(9,4,72)

"Ritual can trap our attention better than anything I can think of, but it also
demands a very high price. That high price is morbidity; and that morbidity
could have the heaviest liens and mortgages on our awareness." Morbidity is the
antithesis of the surge of energy awareness needed to reach freedom. Morbidity
makes warriors lose their way and become trapped in the intricate, dark byways
of the unknown. (8,6,284-285)

"To understand one needs sobriety, not emotionality. Beware of those who weep
with realization, for they have realized nothing." (7,4,65)

Warriors can never make a bridge to join the people of the world. But, if people
desire to do so, they have to make a bridge to join warriors. (8,5,213)

"Warriors never look for anyone. And I was a warrior. I had paid with my life for
the mistake of not knowing I was a warrior, and that warriors never approach
anyone." (8,5,215) [Don Juan said this after telling the story of his temporary
death]

"Death is painful only when it happens in one's bed, in sickness. In a fight for

your life, you feel no pain. If you feel anything, it's exultation." (8,6,227)
When our death warns us, it always comes as a chill. (3,4,54-55)
"To be an impeccable warrior ... will give you vigor and youth and power."
(5,5,236)

"Power objects are like a game for children." (l,Introduction,10)

"Power rests on the kind of knowledge one holds. What is the sense of knowing

things that are useless?" (l,Introduction,10)
"Everything is dangerous."(2,7,139)

"You must talk to the plants before you pick them. In order to see the plants
you must talk to them personally. You must get to know them individually;
then the plants can tell you everything you care to know about them."(2,6,117)

"Big animals like that [a jaguar] have the capacity to read thoughts. And I don't
mean guess. I mean that they know everything directly." (8,6,221)

"The sorcerers of olden times, who gave us the entire format of the warrior's way,
believed that there is sadness in the universe, as a force, a condition, like light,
like intent, and that this perennial force acts especially on warriors because they
no longer have any defensive shields. They cannot hide behind their friends or
their studies. They cannot hide behind love, or hatred, or happiness, or misery.
They can't hide behind anything. The condition of warriors is that sadness, for
them, is abstract. It doesn't come from coveting or lacking something, or from
self-importance. It doesn't come from me. It comes from infinity.'''' (12,6,101)

Consequences of conceiving children: Having children leaves a hole in the luminous
shell of the energy body, damaging it. (5,3,118-119) A boy steals the biggest part
of his edge from his father, a girl from her mother. (5,3,130) To recover the edge
that children take one must refuse them. When they mean nothing, one has to see
them, lay the eyes and hands on them, pat them gently on the head and the
warrior's body will snatch the edge back. The child will be unharmed, but the
warrior regains the edge, repairing the luminous shell. (5,3,132) ... the edge of a
person who dies goes back to the givers, meaning that the edge goes back to the
parents. If the givers are dead and the person [who died] has children, the edge

goes to the child who is complete. And if all the children are complete, that edge
goes to the one with power and not necessarily to the best or most diligent. A
complete person is one who has not had children, whether they know about them
or not. (5,5,234) Power plants are only given to empty people. (5,5,256)
(Maria Elena quoting Don Juan)
"[The old sorcerers] discovered that we have a companion for life. We have a
predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our
lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has
rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we
want to act independently, it demands that we don't do so. They took us over
because we are food for them, and they squeeze us mercilessly because we are
their sustenance. Just as we rear chickens in chicken coops, gallineros, the
predators raise us in human coops, humaneros. Therefore, their food is always
available to them. In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators
engaged themselves in a stupendous maneuver - stupendous, of course, from the
view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous maneuver from the point of view of
those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators
gave us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predator's mind is baroque,
contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now.
Through the mind, which, after all, is their mind, the predators inject into the
lives of human beings whatever is convenient for them. And they ensure, in this
manner, a degree of security to act as a buffer against their fear." Warriors see
infant human beings as strange, luminous balls of energy, covered from the top to
the bottom with a glowing coat, something like a plastic cover that is adjusted
tightly over their cocoon of energy. That glowing coat of awareness is what the
predators consume, and when human beings reach adulthood, all that is left of
that glowing coat of awareness is a narrow fringe that goes from the ground to the
tops of the toes. That fringe allows mankind to continue living, but only barely.
This narrow fringe of awareness is the epicenter of self-reflection, where man is
irremediably caught. By playing on our self -reflection, which is the only point of
awareness left to us, the predators create flares of awareness that they proceed to
consume in a most ruthless, predatory fashion. They give us inane problems that
force those flare of awareness to rise, and in this manner they keep us alive in
order for them to be fed with the energetic flare of our pseudoconcerns. All we
can do is discipline ourselves to the point where they will not touch us. "The
old sorcerers saw the predator. They called it the flyer because it leaps through
the air. It is not a pretty sight. It is a big shadow, impenetrably dark, a black
shadow that jumps through the air. Then, it lands flat on the ground. The only
alternative left for mankind is discipline. Discipline is the only deterrent. But by
discipline I don't mean harsh routines. I don't mean waking up every morning
at five-thirty and throwing cold water on yourself until you're blue. Warriors
understand discipline as the capacity to face with serenity odds that are not
included in our expectations. For them, discipline is an art: the art of facing
infinity without flinching, not because they are strong and tough but because they
are filled with awe. Warriors say that discipline makes the glowing coat of

awareness unpalatable to the flyer. The result is that the predators become
bewildered. An inedible glowing coat of awareness is not part of their cognition,
I suppose. After being bewildered, they don't have any recourse other than
refraining from their nefarious task. If the predators don't eat our glowing coat
of awareness for a while, it'll keep on growing. Once it goes beyond the level of
the toes, it grows back to its natural size. As awareness reaches levels higher that
the toes, tremendous maneuvers of perception become a matter of course. [The
old sorcerers] found out that if they taxed the flyer's mind with inner silence, the
foreign installation would flee... The foreign installation comes back, I assure you,
but not as strong, and a process begins in which the fleeing of the flyer's mind
becomes routine, until one day it flees permanently. A sad day indeed! That's the
day when you have to rely on your own devices, which are nearly zero. There's no
one to tell you what to do. There's no mind of foreign origin to dictate the
imbecilities you're accustomed to. My teacher, the nagual Julian, used to warn all
his disciples that this was the toughest day in a sorcerers life, for the real mind
that belongs to us, the sum total of our experience, after a lifetime of domination
has been rendered shy, insecure, and shifty. Personally, I would say that the real
battle of warriors begins at that moment. The rest is merely preparation."
(12,15,218-225)

Procedures For The Direct Manipulation Of Awareness

Traveling great distances: "You traveled because you woke up at a distant dreaming

position... Strong emotion, unbending intent, or great interest serves as a guide;

then the assemblage point gets powerfully fixed at the dreaming position, long

enough to drag there all the emanations that are inside the cocoon." (7,17,279)
To dispel fear or obsession: Measure the body to the hundredth of an inch and

establish its exact midpoint. Such a point is a true center of energy in all of us.

Focus attention on that point. (7,7,114)
For protection when facing unknown phenomena: Sit with the left leg tucked under

the seat and the right leg with the knee up like a shield. (7,9,153)
"A man of knowledge ... can tell the innermost feelings of men by watching their

shadows." (3,15,23)
"The twilight is the crack between the worlds."(l,4,72)

To induce dreaming: Smack yourself gently but firmly on your right side between
the hipbone and the ribcage. (7,14,219)

A method Don Juan used to shift Castaneda's assemblage point: A smack with the
palm of the hand on 3 points - 1) On the crest of the right hipbone. 2) On the
center of the back below the shoulder blades. 3) On the upper part of the right
pectoral muscle. (7,15,245)

To beckon intent: The eyes are the catchers of intent. One must place one's attention
on the luminous shell. The eyes turn for an instant to focus on the point of the
second attention [The point where the second attention assembles itself is
approximately 18 inches in front of the midpoint between the stomach and the

belly button and 4 inches to the right. Massage that place by moving the fingers
of both hands as if one was playing a harp. That brings the point closer to the
physical body and thus closer to control. (6,13,254)]. The head is straight, as if
looking ahead, only the eyes are askew, the glance is the secret. To revert to the
physical level, focus the eyes on the body. (6,15,310) [This technique is also used to
trigger seeing.]

Repetition: Everything new in our lives, such as the concepts of the warrior's way,
have to be repeated to us to the point of exhaustion before we open ourselves to it.
After all, repetition is the way our progenitors socialized us to function in the
daily world, so the same method is used to teach the warrior's way. (9,2,34)

Agreements from the world around us: "A man can get agreements from everything
around him." (3,1,25) [These are unbidden sounds from our surroundings that
come in response to statements or thoughts, particularly those concerning the
nature of perception and the world around us. Omens are a different category,
however. Only a complete reading of all the books can begin to enlighten one on
their nature.]

Pushing disease out of the body: "... she has to push the disease away with her left
hand. She must push her arm out in front of her with her hand clenched as if
she were holding a knob. She must push on and on as she says out, out, out.
... she must dedicate every second of her remaining life to performing that
movement." (5,2,106-107)

Pushing disease or an unwelcome feeling out of the body: He [Don Juan] made me
lie down and took my right arm and bent it at my elbow. Then he turned my hand
until the palm was facing the front; he curved my fingers so my hand looked as if
I were holding a doorknob, and then he began to move my arm back and forth
with a circular motion that resembled the act of pushing and pulling a lever
attached to a wheel. The idea was to push and pull an imaginary opposing force
until one felt a heavy object, a solid body, stopping the free movements of the
hand. If the hand becomes cold, stop the exercise immediately. (3,15,231-232)

Entering a car: Enter a car by crawling. Cars are caves and caves have to be
entered in that fashion if one is going to use them. There is an inherent spirit to
caves , man-made or natural, and that spirit has to be approached with respect.
Crawling is the only way to show that respect. (5,3,116)

Carrying items: One should never carry things in the hands when walking. It is
debilitating to the body. One should use a knapsack or any sort of carrying net
or shoulder bag. (3,3,38)

Stretching: It is a good practice to stretch the entire body after sleeping, sitting or
walking. (3,14,202) "You must stretch your body many times during the day. The
more times the better, but only after a long period of work or a long period of
rest." (3,14,216)

Stretching: Stretch your arms in front of you, to your sides, and then behind you.

"It relaxes the body..." (9,11,204)
"When you have been afraid or upset, don't lie down to sleep. Sleep sitting up on a

soft chair..." (8,2,45)
Giving the body healing rest: Take long naps, lying on the stomach, with the face

turned to the left and the feet hanging over the foot of the bed. In order to avoid

being cold, put a soft pillow over the shoulders, away from the neck, and wear

heavy socks, or just leave the shoes on. (8,2,45-46)
Don Juan on beverages: He did not drink alcohol, coffee or tea. "I drink water."

(8,3,92) [His attitude toward alcohol is very clear in the earlier books, especially

A Separate Reality]
Don Juan said he never drank soda... (2,4,90)

Reflections of ourselves: We either love or hate those who are reflections of
ourselves. (8,2,48)

Paying back indebtedness: Warriors pay back their indebtedness for favors shown
them by others by paying back to the spirit of man. One gives favors or money to
those truly in need. (5,3,124)

The best way of getting energy: Let the sun inside the eyes, especially the left eye,
by moving the head slowly from side to side as the half closed left eye catches
the sunlight. One can use not only the sun but any kind of light that could shine
on the eyes. (5,5,267-268)

Getting energy from the earth: Women can get energy from the earth by rolling on
the ground. The energy comes into the womb and the rolling distributes that
energy over the rest of the body. Men get energy from the earth by lying on their
back with the knees bent so that the soles of the feet touch each other. His arms
must be extended laterally, with the forearms raised vertically, with the fingers
clawed in an upright position. (5,5,268)

Scanning an area for the proper place to rest: One crosses the eyes, looking in quick
glances, forcing the eyes to see separately the same image. Looking in short
glances allows the eyes to see unusual sights. "They are not sights proper. They
are more like feelings. If you look at a tree or a bush or a rock where you might
like to rest, your eyes can make you feel whether or not that's the best resting
place. How you feel is the important issue. Once you learn to separate the
images and see two of everything, you must focus your attention in the area
between the two images. Any change worthy of notice would take place there,
in that area." It takes years to train the eyes properly. (3,6,72-75) The colors
associated with the spots: Purple for bad spots, and verdigris for good spots.
(1,1,19)

The gait of power: "The gait of power is for running at night." The trunk of the
body is slightly bent over, but the spine is straight. The knees are also slightly
bent. One raises the knees almost to the chest every time one takes a step. The key
to it is to let one's personal power flow out freely, so it can merge with the power
of the night. Once that power takes over there is no chance for a slip-up. The
manner in which the legs are lifted resembles a sprinter doing preliminary
warm-up exercises. One should also curl the fingers against the palms of the
hands and stretch out the thumb and index finger of each hand. The gait of power
requires that that one keep the eyes on the ground directly in front, because even
a glance to either side would produce an alteration in the flow of movement.
Bending the trunk forward is necessary in order to lower the eyes, and the reason
for lifting the knees up to the chest is because the steps have to be very short and

safe. (3,14,204-207)

Using the wind at twilight: " ... during the twilight the wind becomes power." If
a warrior, during the twilight, covers himself and hides from the wind until it
is completely dark, power will seal him into its protection. If a warrior exposes
himself to the wind during twilight, power will nag him and seek him all night,
keeping him awake. (3,7,90)

The direction of the life force: Life force flows to us from the south, and leaves us
flowing toward the north. The only opening to a Nagual's world is through the
south. (6,10,192)

Making choices: There are only right and wrong choices. If you make a wrong
choice your body knows it, and so does the body of everyone else; but if you make
a right choice the body knows that and relaxes and forgets right away that there
was a choice. You reload your body, see, like a gun, for the next choice. If you
want to use your body again for making the same choice, it doesn't work.
(Pablito quoting don Genaro) (4,11,214)

How Don Juan numbed Castaneda at their first meeting: "The warrior's gaze is
placed on the right eye of the other person and what it does is to stop the
internal dialogue... The gaze on the right eye is not a stare, it's rather a forceful
grabbing that one does through the eye of the other person. In other words, one
grabs something that is behind the eye. One has the actual physical sensation that
one is holding something with the will. Something snaps forward from some place
below the stomach; that something has direction and can be focused on anything.
It works only when the warrior learns to focus his will. There's no way of
practicing it, therefore I have not recommended or encouraged its use. At a given
moment in the life of a warrior it simply happens. No one knows how. The secret
is in the left eye. As a warrior progresses on the path of knowledge his left eye can
clasp anything. Usually the left eye of a warrior has a strange appearance;
sometimes it becomes permanently crossed, or it becomes smaller than the other,
or larger, or different in some way." (4,12,230-231)

There is a superb center of perception on the outside of the calves. If the skin in that
area could be made to relax or be soothed, the scope of our perception would be
enhanced. (6,13,257)

"Walking is always something that precipitates memories. The sorcerers of ancient
Mexico believed that everything we live we store as a sensation on the backs of
the legs. They considered the backs of the legs to be the warehouse of man's
personal history." (12,11,149)

Using a leather harness: A leather harness is a superb device for curing certain
maladies that are not physical. The idea is that the higher a person is suspended
and the longer that person is kept from touching the ground, dangling in midair,
the better the possibilities of a true cleansing effect. (6,9,187)

To be kept without touching the ground for a period of time tunes the body. It is
essential to do this before embarking on a dangerous journey. (6,13,264)

Postscript

THE RULE OF THE NAGUAL (6,9,176-181)

The power that governs the destiny of all living beings is called the Eagle, not
because it is an eagle or has anything to do with an eagle, but because it appears to
the seer as an immeasurable jet-black eagle, standing erect as an eagle stands, its
height reaching to infinity.

As the seer gazes on the blackness that is the Eagle, four blazes of light reveal
what the Eagle is like. The first blaze, which is like a bolt of lightning, helps the seer
make out the contours of the Eagle's body. There are patches of whiteness that look
like an eagle's feathers and talons. A second blaze of lightning reveals the flapping,
wind-creating blackness that looks like an eagle's wings. With the third blaze of
lightning the seer beholds a piercing, inhuman eye. And the fourth and last blaze
discloses what the Eagle is doing.

The Eagle is devouring the awareness of all the creatures that, alive on earth a
moment before and now dead, have floated to the Eagle's beak, like a ceaseless
swarm of fireflies, to meet their owner, their reason for having had life. The Eagle
disentangles these tiny flames, lays them flat, as a tanner stretches out a hide, and
then consumes them; for awareness is the Eagle's food.

The Eagle, that power that governs the destinies of all living things, reflects
equally and at once all those living things. There is no way, therefore, for man to
pray to the Eagle, to ask favors, to hope for grace. The human part of the Eagle is
too insignificant to move the whole.

It is only from the Eagles actions that a seer can tell what it wants. The Eagle,
although it is not moved by the circumstances of any living thing, has granted a gift
to each of those beings. In its own way and right, any one of them, if it so desires,
has the power to keep the flame of awareness, the power to disobey the summons to
die and be consumed. Every living thing has been granted the power, if it so desires,
to seek an opening to freedom and to go through it. It is evident to the seer who sees
the opening, and the creatures that go through it, that the Eagle has granted that
gift in order to perpetuate awareness.

For the purpose of guiding living things to that opening, the Eagle created the
Nagual. The Nagual is a double being to whom the rule has been revealed. Whether
it be in the form of a human being, an animal, a plant, or anything else that lives,
the Nagual by virtue of its doubleness is drawn to seek that hidden passageway.

The Nagual comes in pairs, male and female. A double man and a double woman
become the Nagual only after the rule has been told to each of them, and each of
them has understood it and accepted it in full.

To the eye of the seer, a Nagual man or Nagual woman appears as a luminous egg
with four compartments. Unlike the average human being, who has two sides only, a
left and a right, the Nagual has a left side divided into two long sections, and a right
side equally divided in two.

The Eagle created the first Nagual man and Nagual woman as seers and
immediately put them in the world to see. It provided them with four female
warriors who were stalkers, three male warriors, and one male courier, whom they
were to nourish, enhance, and lead to freedom.

The female warriors are called the four directions, the four corners of a square,
the four moods, the four winds, the four different female personalities that exist in
the human race.

The first is the east. She is called order. She is optimistic, lighthearted, smooth,
persistent like a steady breeze.

The second is the north. She is called strength. She is resourceful, blunt, direct,
tenacious like a hard wind.

The third is the west. She is called feeling. She is introspective, remorseful,
cunning, sly, like a gust of cold wind.

The fourth is the south. She is called growth. She is nurturing, loud, shy, warm,
like a hot wind.

The three male warriors and the courier are representative of the four types of
male activity and temperament.

The first type is the knowledgeable man, the scholar; a noble, dependable, serene
man, fully dedicated to accomplishing his task, whatever it may be.

The second type is the man of action, highly volatile, a great humorous fickle
companion.

The third type is the organizer behind the scenes, the mysterious, unknowable
man. Nothing can be said about him because he allows nothing about himself to slip
out.

The courier is the fourth type. He is the assistant, a taciturn, somber man who
does very well if properly directed but who cannot stand on his own.

In order to make things easier, the Eagle showed the Nagual man and Nagual
woman that each of these types among men and women of the earth has specific
features in its luminous body.

The scholar has a sort of shallow dent, a bright depression at his solar plexus. In
some men it appears as a pool of intense luminosity, sometimes smooth and shiny
like a mirror without reflection.

The man of action has some fibers emanating from the area of the will. The
number of fibers varies from one to five, their size ranging from a mere string to a
thick, whiplike tentacle up to eight feet long. Some have as many as three of these
fibers developed into tentacles.

The man behind the scenes is recognized not by a feature but by his ability to
create, quite involuntarily, a burst of power that effectively blocks the attention of
seers. When in the presence of this type of man, seers find themselves immersed in
extraneous detail rather than seeing.

The assistant has no obvious configuration. To seers he appears as a clear glow in
a flawless shell of luminosity.

In the female realm, the east is recognized by the almost imperceptible blotches in
her luminosity, something like small areas of discoloration.

The north has an overall radiation; she exudes a reddish glow, almost like heat.

The west has a tenuous film enveloping her, a film which makes her appear
darker than the others.

The south has an intermittent glow; she shines for a moment and then gets dull,
only to shine again.

The Nagual man and the Nagual woman have two different have two different
movements in their luminous bodies. Their right sides wave, while their left sides
whirl.

In terms of personality, the Nagual man is supportive, steady, unchangeable. The
Nagual woman is a being at war and yet relaxed, ever aware but without strain.
Both of them reflect the four types of their sex, as four ways of behaving.

The first command that the Eagle gave the Nagual man and Nagual woman was
to find, on their own, another set of four female warriors, four directions, who were
the exact replicas of the stalkers but who were dreamers.

Dreamers appear to a seer as having an apron of hairlike fibers at their
midsections. Stalkers have a similar apronlike feature, but instead if fibers the
apron consists of countless small, round protuberances.

The eight female warriors are divided into two bands, which are called the right
and left planets. The right planet is made up of four stalkers, the left of four
dreamers. The warriors of each planet were taught by the Eagle the rule of their
specific task: stalkers were taught stalking; dreamers were taught dreaming.

The two female warriors of each direction live together. They are so alike that
they mirror each other, and only through impeccability can they find solace and
challenge in each other's reflection.

The only time when the four dreamers or four stalkers get together is when they
have to accomplish a strenuous task; but only under special circumstances should
the four of them join hands, for their touch fuses them into one being and should be
used only in cases of dire need, or at the moment of leaving this world.

The two female warriors of each direction are attached to one of the males, in any
combination that is necessary. Thus they make a set of four households, which are
capable of incorporating as many warriors as needed.

The male warriors and the courier can also form an independent unit of four
men, or each can function as a solitary being, as dictated by necessity.

Next the Nagual and his party were commanded to find three more couriers.
These could be all males or all females or a mixed set, but the male couriers had to
be the fourth type of man, the assistant, and the females had to be from the south.

In order to make sure that the first Nagual man would lead his party to freedom
and not deviate from that path or become corrupted, the Eagle took the Nagual
woman to the other world to serve as a beacon, guiding the party to the opening.

The Nagual and his warriors were then commanded to forget. They were plunged
into darkness and were given new tasks: the task of remembering themselves, and
the task of remembering the Eagle.

The command to forget was so great that everyone was separated. They did not
remember who they were. The Eagle intended that if they were capable of
remembering themselves again, they would find the totality of themselves. Only then
would they have the strength and forbearance necessary to seek and face their
definitive journey.

Their last task, after they had regained the totality of themselves, was to get a new
pair of double beings and transform them into a new Nagual man and a new Nagual
woman by virtue of revealing the rule to them. And just as the first Nagual man and

Nagual woman had been provided with a minimal party, they had to supply the new
pair of Naguals with four female warriors who were stalkers, three male warriors,
and one male courier.

When the first Nagual and his party were ready to go through the passageway,
the first Nagual woman was waiting to guide them. They were ordered then to take
the new Nagual woman with them to the other world to serve as a beacon for her
people, leaving the new Nagual man to repeat the cycle.

While in the world, the minimal number under a Nagual's leadership is sixteen:
eight female warriors, four male warriors, counting the Nagual, and four couriers.
At the moment of leaving the world, when the new Nagual woman is with them, the
Nagual's number is seventeen. If his personal power permits him to have more
warriors, then more must be added in multiples of four.

"A man is defeated only when he no longer tries, and abandons himself." (1,3,64)

"Put your trust in yourself, not in me."(2,5,110)

"Our link is with the spirit itself and only incidentally with the man who brings us

its message." (9,1,11)

The Basic Concepts Of The Warrior's Way (8,Introduction,15-16)

1. The universe is an infinite agglomeration of energy fields, resembling threads of
light.

2. These energy fields, called the Eagle's emanations, radiate from a source of
inconceivable proportions metaphorically called the Eagle.

3. Human beings are also composed of an incalculable number of the same
threadlike energy fields. These Eagle's emanations form an encased
agglomeration that manifests itself as a ball of light the size of the person's
body with the arms extended laterally, like a giant luminous egg.

4. Only a very small group of the energy fields inside this luminous ball are lit
up by a point of intense brilliance located on the ball's surface.

5. Perception occurs when the energy fields in that small group immediately
surrounding the point of brilliance extend their light to illuminate identical
energy fields outside the ball. Since the only energy fields perceivable are those
lit by the point of brilliance, that point is named "the point where perception is
assembled" or simply "the assemblage point."

6. The assemblage point can be moved from its usual position on the surface of
the luminous ball to another position on the surface, or into the interior. Since
the brilliance of the assemblage point can light up whatever energy field it comes
in contact with, when it moves to a new position it immediately brightens up new
energy fields, making them perceivable. This perception is known as seeing.

7. When the assemblage point shifts, it makes possible the perception of
entirely different worlds - as objective and factual as the ones we normally
perceive. Warriors go into those worlds to get energy, power, solutions to general
and particular problems, or to face the unimaginable.

8. Intent is the pervasive force that causes us to perceive. We do not become aware
because we perceive; rather, we perceive as a result of the pressure and intrusion
of intent.

9. The aim of warriors is to reach a state of total awareness in order to experience
all the possibilities of perception available to man. This state of awareness [the
third attention] even implies an alternative to dying.

"Impeccable men need no one to guide them, that by themselves, through saving
their energy, they can do everything that seers do. All they need is a minimal
chance, just to be cognizant of the possibilities that seers have unraveled."
(7,11,178)

Quotations from the hardcover editions of Castaneda's books are noted as (Book,
Chapter, Page), the number of each book determined by its order of publication as

listed.

1. The Teachings of Don Juan : A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (30th Anniv. Edition)

2. A Separate Reality

3. Journey to Ixtlan
4. Tales of Power

5. The Second Ring of Power
6. The Eagle's Gift

7. The Fire From Within

8. The Power of Silence

9. The Art of Dreaming
10. Magical Passes

11. The Wheel of Time
12. The Active Side of Infinity